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A NEW 



SPIRIT OF THE AGE 




EDITED BY RC HYHORNE, 

AUTHOR OF "ORION,"-" GREGORY VII. ." ETC. ETC. 




' It is an easy thing to praise or blame : 
The hard task, and the virtue, to do both. 



NEW-YORK : 

J. C. RIKER, 129 FULTON-STREET, 

1844. 






f^ 




NEW-roHK: 



JOHrt p. TROW 



No. 33 Ann-street. 



CO., PRIKTBR8, 



CONTENTS 



rA.at. 

1. Charles Dickens ........ 9 

2. Lord Ashley and Dr. Southwood Smith ... 53 

3. Thomas Ingoldsby 80 

4. Walter Savage Landor ...... 93 

5. William and Mary Hovvitt 107 

6. Dr. Pusey 119 

7. G. P. R. James, Mrs. Gore, Captain Marryatt, and Mrs. 

Trollope 127 

8. T. N. Talfourd 145 

9. R. M. Milnes and Hartley Coleridge .... 154 

10. Sydney Smith, A. Fonblanque, and D. Jerrold . . 162 

11. William Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt .... 177 

12. Alfred Tennyson ........ 193 

13. T. B. Macaulay 211 

14. Thomas Hood and the late Theodore Hook . . . 221 

15. Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Jameson .... 227 

16. Sheridan Knowles and William Macready . . . 238 

17. Miss E. B. Barrett and Mrs. Norton .... 264 

18. Banim and the Irish Novelists ...... 271 

19. Robert Browning and J. W. Marston .... 278 

20. Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer 297 

21. William Harrison Ainsworth ..... 313 

22. Mrs. Shelley and Imaginative Romance .... 317 

23. Robert Montgomery ....••• 322 

24. Thomas Carlyle 333 

25. Henry Taylor, and the Author of " Festus." . . 348 



PREFACE 



Nearly twenty years have now elapsed since the publi- 
cation of Hazlitt's " Spirit of the Age," and a new set of 
men, several of them animated by a new spirit, have obtain- 
ed eminent positions in the public mind. 

Of those-selected by Hazliit, three are introduced in the 
present publication ; and two also of those who appeared in 
the "Authors of England;" for reasons which will be ap- 
parent in the papers relating to them. With these excep- 
tions, our selection has net been made from those who are 
already " crowned," and their claims settled, but almost en- 
tirely from those who are in progress and midway of fame. 

It has been throughout a matter of deep regret to the 
Editor, more keenly felt as the work drew towards its con- 
clusion, that he found himself con)pelled to omit several 
names which should have been included ; not merely of au- 
thors, who, like himself, belong only to the last ten or fifteen 
years, but of veterans in the field of literature, who have not 
been duly estimated in collections of this kind. Inability 
to find sufficient space is one of the chief causes; in some 
cases, however, the omission is attributable to a difficulty of 
classification, or the perplexity induced by a versatility of 
talents in the same individual. In some cases, also, names 
honoured in literature, could not be introduced without en- 
tering into the discussion of questions of a nature not well 



VI PREfACK. 

suited to a wcrk of this kind — or rather to this division of a 
possible series — yet with which great questions their names 
are identified. 

The selection, therefore, which it has been thought most 
advisable to adept, has been the names of those most emi- 
nent in general literature, and representing most extensively 
the Spirit of the Age ; and the names of two individuals, 
who, in this work, represent those philanthropic principles 
now influencing the minds and moral feelings of all the first 
intellects of the time. Suflicient cause will be apparent in 
the respective articles for the one or two other exceptions. 

For the most of the omissions, however, one remedy 
alone remains. The present work, though complete in 
itself, forms only the inaugural part of a projected series, 
the continuation of which will probably depend upon the 
reception of this first main division ; which in a'ny case may 
be regarded as the centre of the whole. 

Should the design of the projectors be fully carried out, 
it will comprise the " Political Spirit of ihe Age," in which 
of course the leading men of all parties will be included; 
the " Scientific Spirit of the Age." including those who 
most conspicuously represent the strikingly opposite classes 
of discovery or development, &c.; the " Artistical Spirit of 
the Age," including the principal painters, sculptors, musi- 
cal composers, architects, and engravers of the time, with 
such reference to the theatres and concert-rooms as may be 
deemed necessary ; and the " Historical, biographical, and 
critical Spirit of the Age." 

But more than all, the Editor regrets that he could aflbrd 
no sufficient space for an examination of the Books for Chil- 
dren, which must be regarded as exercising so great and last- 
ing an influence upon the mind and future life. He is well 
assured, while admiring a few excellent works like those of 
Mrs. Marcet and Mary Howitt, that there are innumerable 
books for children, the sale of which is enormous, as the 



influence of them is of the most injurious character. But 
this could be only apjM'opriately dealt with under the head 
of Education. 

It will readily be understood that the present volumes 
refer simply to our own cotmtry, and (with one exception) 
to those now living. In the biographical sketches, which 
are only occasional, the Editor has carefully excluded all 
disagreeable personalities, and all unwarrantable anecdotes. 
The criticisms are entirely on abstract grounds. 

There is one peculiarity in the critical opinions express- 
ed in these volumes : it is that they are never balanced and 
equivocal, or evasive of decision on the whole. Where the 
writer doubts his own judgment, he says so ; but in all cases, 
the reader will never be in doubt as to what the critic really 
means to say. The Editor, before commencing this labour, 
confesses to the weakness of having deliberated with himself 
a good half hour as to whether he should "try to please 
every body ;" but the result was, that he determined to try 
and please one person only. It may seem a bad thing to 
acknowledge, but that one was " himself" The pleasure 
he expected to derive, was from the conviction of having 
fully spoken out what he felt to be the Truth ; and in the 
pleasure of this consciousness he is not disappointed. His 
chief anxiety now is, (and more particularly, of course, with 
respect to those articles which have been written by himself,) 
that the reader should never mistake the self-confidence of 
the critic for arrogance, or the presumptuous tone of assum- 
ed superiority, which are so revolting; but solely attribute 
it to his strong feeling of conviction, and a belief that he 
clearly sees the truth of the matter in question. There is no 
other feeling in it. He may be often wrong, but it is with 
a clear conscience. 

The Editor having contributed lo several quarterly jour- 
nals during the last seven or eight years, has transferred a 
few passages into the pages of this work concerning writers 



VIU PREFACE, 

^vhose peculiar genius he had exclusive leisure to study 
some time since, and has been unwilling to say the same 
things in other words. But these passages occur in two 
articles only. 

For valuable assistance and advice from several eminent 
individuals, the Editor begs to return his grateful thanks. It 
will be sufficiently apparent that several hands are ia the 
work. 

R. H. H. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



" Olio touch of Nature makes the whole world kin." 

" Hungerdoes not preside over this day," replied the Cook, " thanks be to Cama- 
cho the Rich. Alight, and see if thou canst find any where a ladle, and skim out a 
fowl or two, and much good may it do thy good heart." " / see none!" answered 
Sancho. " Stay," quoth the Cook. " God forgive me, what a nice and good-Jor-no- 
thing fellow must you be!" So saying, he laid hold of a kettle, and sousing it at once 
into one of the half jar-pots, he fished out three pullets and a couple of geese...." I 
have nothing to put it in !" answered Sancho. " Then take ladle and all," replied 
the Cook, " for Camacho's riches and felicity are sufficient to supply every thing." 
— Don Quixote, Part ii. Book ii. Cap. 3. 

If an extensive experience and knowledge of the world 
be certain in most cases to render a man suspicious, full of 
doubts and incredulities, equally certain is it that with other 
men such experience and such knowledge exercise this 
influence at rare intervals only, or in a far less degree; 
while in some respects the influence even acts in a directly 
opposite way, and the extraordinary things they have seen 
or suffered, cause them to be very credulous and of open- 
armed faith to embrace strange novelties. They are not 
startled at the sound of fresh wonders in the moral or physi- 
cal world, — they laugh at no feasible theory, and can see 
truth through the refractions of paradox and contradictory 
extremes. They knoio that there are more things in heaven 
and on the earth than in " your philosophy." They observe 
the fables and the visions of one age, become the facts and 
practices of a succeeding age — perhaps even of a few years 
after their first announcement, and before the world has 
done laughing : they are slow to declare any character or 
action to be unnatural, having so often witnessed some of 
the extreme lights and shadows which flit upon the out- 
skirts of Nature's capacious circle, and have perhaps them- 
selves been made to feel the bitter reality of various classes 
of anomaly previously unacjcountable, if not incredible. 

2 



10 CHARLES DICKENS. 

They have discovered that in matters of practical conduct a 
greater blunder cannot in general be made, than to "judge 
of others by yourself," or what you think, feel, and fancy of 
yourself But having found out that the world is not " all 
alike," though like enough for the charities of real life, they 
identify themselves with other individualities, then search 
within for every actual and imaginary resemblance to the 
great majority of their fellow-creatures, which may give 
them a more intimate knowledge of aggregate nature, and 
thus enlarge the bounds of unexclusive sympathy. 

To men of this genial habit and maturity of mind, if also 
they have an observing eye for externals, there is usually a 
very tardy admission of the alleged madness of a picture of 
scenery, or the supposed grossness of a caricature of the 
human countenance. The traveller and the voyager, who 
has, moreover, an eye for art, has often seen enough to con- 
vince him that the genius of Turner and Martin has its 
foundation not only in elemental but in actual truth ; nor 
could such an observer go into any large concourse of peo- 
ple (especially of the poorer classes, where the unsuppressed 
character has been suffered to rise completely to the sur- 
face) without seeing several faces, which, by the addition of 
the vices of social man, might cause many a dumb animal 
to feel indignant at the undoubtedly deteriorated resem- 
blance. The curse of evil circumstances acting upon the 
" third and fourth generations," when added to the " sins of 
the fathers," can and does turn the lost face of humanity 
into something worse than brutish, f As with the face, so is 
it with the character of mankind ; nothing can be too lofty, 
top noble, too lovely to be natural ; nor can any thing be too 
vicious, too brutalized, too mean, or too ridiculous) It is 
observable, however, that there are many degrees find fine 
shades in these frequent degradations of man to the mere 
animal. Occasionally they are no degradation, but rather 
an advantage, as a falcon eye, or a lion brow, will strikingly 
attest. But more generally the effect is either gravely 
humorous, or grotesquely comic ; and in these cases the 
dumb original is not complimented. For, you may see a 
man with a bull's forehead and neck, and a mean grovelling 
countenance, (while that of the bull is physically grand and 
hiffh-purposed,) and the dog, the sheep, the bird, and the 
ape in all their varieties, are often seen with such admix- 



CHARLES DICKENS. H 

tures as are really no advantage. Several times in an indi- 
vidual's life he may meet in the actual world with most of 
the best and worst kind of faces and characters of the world 
of fiction. It is true that there are not to be found a whole 
tribe of Quilps and Q,uasimodos, (you would not wish it ?) 
but once in the life of the student of character he may have 
a glimpse of just such a creature ; and that, methinks, were 
quite familiar proof enough both for nature and art. Those 
who have e.Kclusively portrayed the pure ideal in grandeur 
or beauty, and those also who have exclusively, or chiefly, 
portrayed monstrosities and absurdities, have been recluse 
men, who drew with an inward eye, and copied from their 
imaginations : the men who have given us the largest amount 
of truth under the greatest variety of forms, have always 
been those who went abroad into the world in all its ways ; 
and in the works of such men will always be found those 
touches of nature which can only be copied at first-hand, 
and the extremes of which originalities are never unnaturally 
exceeded. There are no caricatures in the portraits of Ho- 
garth, nor are there any in those of Dickens. The most 
striking thing in both, is their apparently inexhaustible 
variety and truth of character. 

Charles Lamb, in his masterly essay " On the Genius of 
Hogarth," says, that in the print of the "Election Dinner," 
there are more than thirty distinct classes of face, all in one 
room, and disposed in a natural manner, and all partaking 
in the spirit of the scene. The uproarious fun and comic 
disasters in the picture of "Chairing the Member;" the 
fantastic glee and revelries of " Southwark Fair ;" the irony 
and farcical confusion of the " March to Finchley ;" the 
ludicrous and voluble pertinacities of the " Enraged Musi- 
cian ;" and the rich humours of " Beer Street," — in every 
one, and in every part of which pictures, there is character, 
and characteristic thought or action, — are well known to all 
the numerous class of Hogarth's admirers. How very like 
they are to many scenes in the works of Dickens, not sub- 
stantially nor in particular details, but in moral purpose and 
finished execution of parts, and of the whole, must surely 
have been often observed. The resemblance is apparent 
with regard to single figures and to separate groups — all 
with different objects, and often in conflict with the rest — 
and equally apparent with relation to one distinct and 



12 CHARLES DICKENS. 

never-to-bc-mistaken whole into which the various figures 
and groups are fused, and over which one general and har- 
monizing atmosphere expands, not by any apparent inten- 
tion in the skilful hand of the artist, but as if exhaled from 
and sustained by the natural vitality of the scene. 

But the comic humour for which these two great mas- 
ters of character are most popularly known, constitutes a 
part only of their genius, and certainly not the highest part. 
Both possess tragic power — not at all in the ideal world, 
nor yet to be regarded as mere harsh, unredeemed matter- 
of-fact reality — but of the profoundest order. Mingled with 
their graphic tendencies to portray absurdity and ugliness, 
both display a love for the beautiful, and the pathetic. In 
the latter respect, more especially, Mr. Dickens greatly 
excels; and two or three of his scenes, and numerous inci- 
dental touches, have never been surpassed, if the heart-felt 
tears of tens of thousands of readers are any test of natural 
pathos. But although their tragic power is so great, it is 
curious to observe that neither Hogarth nor Dickens has 
ever portrayed a tragic character, in the higher or more 
essential sense of the term. The individual whose bound- 
ing emotions and tone of thought are in an habitual state of 
passionate elevation, and whose aims and objects, if actually 
attainable, are still, to a great extent, idealized by the glow- 
ing atmosphere of his imagination, and a high-charged tem- 
perament — such a character, which is always ready to meet 
a tragic result half-way, if not to produce it, finds no place 
in the works of either. In their works no one dies for a 
noble purpose, nor for an abstract passion. There is no 
walking to execution, or to a premature grave by any other 
means, with a lofty air of conscious right, and for some 
great soul-felt truth — no apprehension for a capital crime in 
which there is a noble bearing or exultation — no death-bed 
of greatness in resignation and contentment for the cause — 
for there is no great cause at stake. Their tragedy is the 
constant tragedy of private life — especially with the ])oorer 
classes. They choose a man or woman for this purpose, 
with sufficient strength of body and will, and for the most 
part vicious and depraved ; they place them in just the right 
sort of desperate circumstances which will ripen their pre- 
vious character to its disastrous end ; and they then leave 
the practical forces of nature and society to finish the story. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 13 

Most truly, and fearfully, and morally, is it all done — or 
rather, it all seems to happen, and we read it as a fac-simile, 
or a most faithful chronicle. Their heroes are without any 
tragic principle or purpose in themselves : they never tempt 
their fate or run upon destruction, but rush away from it, 
evade, dodge, hide, fight, wrestle, tear and scream at it as a 
downright horror, and finally die because they absolutely 
cannot help it. This is shown or implied in most of the 
violent deaths which occur in the works of these two inven- 
tive geniuses. 

The tragic force, and deep moral warnings, contained in 
several of the finest works of Hogarth, have been fully re- 
cognized by a few great writers, but are not yet recognized 
sufficiently by the* popular sense. But even some of his 
pictures, which are deservedly among the least popular, 
from the revolting nature of their subject or treatment, do 
yet, for the most part, contain manifestations of his great 
genius. Of this class are the pictures on the " Progress of 
Cruelty :" — but who will deny the terrific truth of the last 
but one of the series. The cruel boy, grown up to cruel 
manhood, has murdered his mistress, apparently to avoid 
the trouble attending her being about to become a mother. 
He has cut her throat at night in a church-yard, and seeming 
to have become suddenly paralyzed at the completeness of 
his own deed, which he was too brutally stupid to compre- 
hend till it was really done, two watchmen have arrested 
him. There lies his victim — motionless, extinct, quite 
passed away out of the scene, out of the world. Her white 
visage is a mere wan case that has opened, and the soul has 
utterly left it. No remains even of bodily pain are trace- 
able, but rather in its vacuity a suggestion that the last ner- 
vous consciousness was a kind of contentment that her life 
of misery should be ended. The graves, the tombstones, 
the old church walls are alive and ejaculatory with horror — 
the man alone stands petrific. There is no bold Turpin, or 
Jack Sheppard-ing to carry the thing off heroically. Stony- 
jointed and stupified, the murderer stands between the two 
watchmen, who grasp him with a horror which is the mixed 
effect of his own upon them, and of their scared discovery 
of the lifeless object before them. It is plain that if the 
murderer had been a flash Newgate Calendar hero, he could 
have burst away from them in a moment. But this would 
not have answered the purpose of the moralist. 



14 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



The above series, nevertheless, is among the least esti- 
mable of the artist's works ; and the last of this set is a 
horrible mixture of the real and ideal, each assisting the 
other to produce a most revolting effect. The remains of 
the executed murderer, which are extended upon the dis- 
secting table, display a consciousness of his situation, and 
a hideous sensation of helpless yet excruciating agony. Such 
a picture, though the moral aim is still apparent, is not in 
the legitimate province of art ; and a similar objection might 
be made to the terrific picture of "Gin Lane," notwith- 
standing the genius it displays. These latter productions 
we have quoted, to show that even in his objectionable pic- 
tures, Hogarth was never a mere designer of extravagances, 
and also to mark the point where the comparison with him 
and Dickens stops. In dealing with repulsive characters 
and actions, the former sometimes does so in a repulsive 
manner, not artistically justifiable by any means, because it 
is a gross copy of the fact. The latter never does this ; and 
his power of dealing with the worst possible characters, at 
their worst moments, and sucro-estinff their worst language, 
yet never once committing himself, his book, or his reader, 
by any gross expression or unredeemed action, is one of the 
most marvellous examples of fine skill and good taste the 
world ever saw, and one great (negative) cause of his uni- 
versal popularity. Had the various sayings and doings, 
manifestly suggested in some parts of his works, been simply 
written out — as they would have been in the time of Field- 
ing and Smollet — his works would never have attained one 
tenth part of their present circulation. Three words — nay, 
three letters — would have lost him his tens of thousands of 
readers in nearly every class of society, and they would 
have lost all the good and all the delight they have derived 
from his writings — to say nothing of future times. 

Upon such apparently slight filaments and conditions 
does popularity often hang ! An author seldom knows how 
vast an amount of success may depend upon the least de- 
gree of forbearance, and even if he does know, is apt to 
prefer his humour, and take his chance. The effect of a 
few gross scenes and expressions in the works of several 
great writers, as a continued drawback to their acknow- 
ledged fame, is sufficiently and sadly palpable; nor can we 
be entirely free from apprehension that eventually, as refine- 
ment advances, they may cease to be read altogether, and 



CHARLES DICKENS. 15 

be exiled to some remote niche in the temple of fame, to 
enjoy their own immortality. There are strong signs of 
this already. 

Mr. Dickens is one of those happily constituted indi- 
viduals who can " touch pitch without soiling his fingers ;" 
the peculiar rarity, in his case, being that he can do so 
without gloves ; and, grasping its clinging blackness with 
both hands, shall yet retain no soil, nor ugly memory. That 
he is at iiome in a wood — in green-lanes and all sweet pas- 
toral scenes — who can doubt it that has ever dwelt among 
them? But he has also been through the back slums of 
many a St. Giles's. He never "picks his way," but goes 
splashing on through mud and mire. The mud and mire 
fly up, and lose themselves like ether — he bears away no 
stain — nobody has one splash. Nor is the squalid place so 
bad as it was before he entered it, for some " touch of na- 
ture" — of unadulterated pathos — of a crushed human heart 
uttering a sound from out the darkness and the slough, has 
left its echo in the air, and half purified it from its malaria 
of depravity. 

A few touches of genuine good feeling, of rich humour, 
and of moral satire, will redeem any thing, so far as the 
high principle, right aim and end of writing are concerned ; 
this, however, will not suffice for extensive popularity in 
these days. The form and expression must equally be con- 
sidered, and the language managed skilfully, especially in 
the use of sundry metropolitan dialects. The secret was 
fully understood, and admirably practised by Sir E. L. Bul- 
wer in his novel of " Paul Clifford ;" it was grievously mis- 
understood, except in the matter of dialect, by Mr. Ainsworth 
in his " Jack Sheppard," which was full of unredeemed 
crimes, but being told without any offensive language, did 
its evil work of popularity, and has now gone to its cradle 
in the cross-roads of literature, and should be henceforth 
hushed up by all who have — as so many have — a personal 
regard for its author. 

The methods by which such characters and scenes as 
have been alluded to, are conveyed to the reader with all 
the force of verisimilitude, yet without offence, are various, 
though it would perhaps be hardly fair to lift the curtain, 
and show the busy-browed artist " as he appeared" with his 
hands full. One means only, as adopted by Mr. Dickens, 



16 CHARLES DICKENS. 

shall be mentioned, and chiefly as it tends to bring out a 
trait of his genius as well as art. When he has introduced 
a girl — her cheeks blotched with rouge, her frock bright 
red, her boots green, her hair stuck over with yellow hair- 
papers, and a glass of" ruin" in her hand — the very next 
time he alludes to her, he calls her " this young lady !" 
Now, if he had called this girl by her actual designation, as 
awarded to her by indignant, moral man — who has nothing 
whatever to do with such degradation — the book would have 
been destroyed ; whereas, the reader perfectly well knows 
what class the poor gaudy outcast belongs to, and the author 
gains a humorous effect by the evasive appellation. In like 
manner he defils with a dirty young thief, as " the first- 
named young gentleman ;"* while the old Jew Fagin — a 
horrible compound of all sorts of villainy, who teaches " the 
young idea" the handicraft of picking pockets, under pre- 
tence of having an amusing game of play with the boys — 
the author designates as " the merry old gentleman !" Every 
body knows what this grissly old hyena-bearded wretch really 
is, and every body is struck with a sense of the ludicrous at 
the preposterous nature of the compliment. In this way 
the author avoids disgust — loses no point of his true meaning 
— and gains in the humour of his scene. He has other 
equally ingenious methods, which perhaps may be studied, 
or perhaps they are the result of the fine tact of a subtle 
instinct and good taste ; enough, however, has been said on 
this point. 

The tragic power and finer qualities of expression in 
Hogarth are elucidated with exquisite precision and truth 
by Charles Lamb in his Essay, where he calls particular 
attention to the "Rake's Progress;" the last scenes of 
" Marriage a la Mode ;" " Industry and Idleness ;" and the 
" Distressed Poet." He makes some fine comments upon 
the expression which is put into the face of the broken- 
down Rake, in the last plate but one of that series, where 
"the long history of a mis-spent life is compressed into the 
countenance as plainly as the series of plates before had told 
it. There is no consciousness of the presence of specta- 
tors, in or out of the picture, but grief kept to a man's self, a 

* " Un dopo pranzo, il Furbo e mastro Bates avendo un invito per la sera, il primo 
nominato si/rnorino si ficco in capo di mostrare un certo penio," &c. Translation, 
Milano, 1840. But to designate the Artful Dodger throughout, simply as " il Furbo," 
is hard — unhandsome. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 17 

face retiring from notice, with the shame which great an- 
guish sometimes brings with it, — a final leave taken of hope 
— the coming on of vacancy and stupefaction — a beginning 
alienation of mind looking like tranquillity. Here is matter 
for the mind of the beholder to feed on for the hour together 
— matter to feed and fertilize the mind." This is not a fanci- 
ful criticism : all that Lamb describes of that face, is thtre, 
and any body may see, who has an educated eye, and clear 
perceptions of humanity behind it. Lamb also alludes to 
the kneeling female in the Bedlam scene of the same series ; 
to the " sad endings of the Harlot and the Rake," in their 
respective " Progresses ;" to the " heart-bleeding entreaties 
for forgiveness of the adulterous wife," in the last scene 
but one of" Marriage a la Mode," and to the sweetly sooth- 
ing face of the wife which seems " to allay and ventilate the 
feverish, irritated feelings of her poor, poverty-distracted 
mate," in the print of the " Distressed Poet," who has a 
tattered map of the mines of Peru stuck against his squalid 
walls. Quite equal, also, to any of these, and yet more 
clearly to the bent of our argument, is the " image of natu- 
ral love" displayed in the aged woman in Plate V. of " In- 
dustry and Idleness," " who is clinging with the fondness 
of hope not quite extinguished, to her brutal vice-hardened 
child, whom she is accompanying to the ship M'hich is to 
bear him away from his native soil : in whose shocking face 
every trace of the human countenance seems obliterated, 
and a brute beast's to be left instead, shocking and repul- 
sive to all but her who watched over it in its cradle before 
it was so sadly altered, and feels it must belong to her while 
a pulse, by the vindictive laws of his country, shall be suf- 
fered to continue to beat in it." 

How analogous, how closely applicable all this is to the 
finest parts of the works of Mr. Dickens, must be sufficient- 
ly apparent. It may be hardly necessary to mention any 
corresponding scenes in particular ; one or two, however, 
rise too forcibly to the mind to be repressed. In " Oliver 
Twist" — the work which is most full of crimes and atroci- 
ties and the lowest characters, of all its author's produc- 
tions, in which these things are by no means scarce — there 
are some of the deepest touches of pathos, and of the 
purest tenderness, not exceeded by any author who ever 
lived — simply because they grow out of the very ground of 



18 CHARLES DICKENS. 

our common humanity, and being Nature at her best, are in 
themselves perfect, by universal laws. Of this kind is the 
scene where the poor sweet-hearted consumptive child, who 
is weeding the garden before any body else has risen, 
climbs up the gate, and puts his little arms through to clasp 
Oliver round the neck, and kiss him " a good bye," as he is 
running away from his wretched apprenticeship.* They 
had both been beaten and starved in the workhouse together, 
and with the little child's "Good-bye, dear — God bless 
you 1" went the full-throated memory of all the tears they 
had shed together, and the present consciousness that they 
should never see each other again. When little Oliver open- 
ed the door at night to run away, the stars looked farther off 
than he had ever seen them before. The world seemed 
widening to the poor outcast boy. Does not the reader 
also recollect the terrible scene of the funeral of the pauper 
in the same work? They, and every thing about *hem, are 
so squalid and filthy that they look like " rats in a drain." 
She died of starvation — her husband, and her old mother 
are sitting beside the body. " There was neither fire nor 
candle, when she died. She died in the dark — in the dark. 
She couldn't even see her children's faces, though we heard 
her gasping out their names !" \ O, ye scions of a refined 
age — readers of the scrupulous taste, who, here and there, 
in apprehensive circles, exclaim upon Dickens as a low 
writer, and a lover of low scenes — look at this passage — 
find out hoto low it is — and rise up from the contemplation 
chastened, purified — wiser, because sorrow-softened and 
better men through the enlargement of sympathies. One 
more, though it can only be alluded to, as it requires a full 
knowledge of the characters and circumstances to be enough 
appreciated. It is the terrific scene where the girl Nancy 
is murdered by the brutal housebreaker Sykes.* The whole 
thing is done in the most uncompromising manner — a more 
ferocious and ghastly deed was never perpetrated ; but what 
words are those which burst from the beseeching heart and 
soul of tlie victim ? At this moment, with murder glaring 
above her, all the sweetness of nature, which the extreme 
corrosion of an utterly vicious life had not been able to ob- 
literate from the last recesses of her being, gushes out, and 

♦ Olivsr Twiit, vol. i. c. 7. t Ibid. vol. iii. c. 4S. 



CHAULE9 DICKENS. 19 

endeavouring to lay her head upon the bosom of her ruffian 
paramour, she calls upon him to leave their bad courses — 
to lead a new life — and to have faith in God's mercy ! 
While uttering which, she finds no mercy from man, and is 
destroyed. 

Any one who would rightly — that is, philosophically as 
well as pleasantly — estimate the genius of Mr. Dickens, 
should first read his works fairly through, and then read the 
Essays by Charles Lamb, and by Hazlitt,* on the genius of 
Hogarth ; or if the hesitating reader in question feels a pre- 
liminary distaste for any thing which displays low vices with- 
out the high sauce of aristocracy to disguise the real repul- 
siveness, (a feeling natural enough, by the way,) then let him 
reverse the process, and begin with the Essays. 

It is observable that neither Hogarth nor Dickens ever 
portray a mere sentimental character, nor a morbid one. 
Perhaps the only exception in all Mr. Dickens's works is his 
character of Monks, which is a failure — a weak villain, 
whose pretended power is badly suggested by black scowl- 
ings and melodramatic night-wanderings in a dark cloak, and 
mouthsful of extravagant curses of devils, and pale-faced 
frothings at the mouth, and fits of convulsion. That the 
subtle old Fagin should have stood in any awe of him is in- 
credible : even the worthy old gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, 
is too many for him, and the stronger character of the two. 
In fact, this Monks is a pretender, and genuine characters 
only suit the hand of our author. A merely respectable 
and amiable common-place character is also pretty certain 
to present rather a wearisome, prosy appearance in the scenes 
of Hogarth and of Dickens. They are only admirable, and 
in their true element, when dealing with characters full 
of unscrupulous life, of genial humour, or of depravities and 
follies; or with characters of tragic force and heart-felt 
pathos. 

Both have been accused of a predilection for the lower 
classes of society, from inability to portray those of the 
upper classes. Now, the predilection being admitted, the 
reason of this is chiefly attributable to the fact that there is 
little if any humour or genuine wit in the upper classes, 
where all gusto of that kind is polished away ; and also to 

* On Marriage a la Mode, 



20 CHARLES DICKENS. 

the fact that both of them have a direct moral purpose in 
view, viz., a desire to ameliorate the condition of the poorer 
classes by showing what society has made of them, or allow- 
ed them to become — and to continue. 

Neither of these great artists ever concentrate the inter- 
est upon any one great character, nor even upon two or 
three, but while their principals are always highly finished, 
and sufficiently prominent on important occasions, they are 
nevertheless often used as centres of attraction, or as a 
means for progressively introducing numerous other charac- 
ters which cross them at every turn, and circle them con- 
tinually with a buzzing world of outward vitality. 

There is a profusion and prodigality of character in the 
works of these two artists. A man, woman, or child, can- 
not buy a morsel of pickled salmon, look at his shoe, or 
bring in a mug of ale ; a solitary object cannot pass on the 
other side of the way ; a boy cannot take a bite at a turnip 
or hold a horse; a by-stander cannot answer the simplest 
question ; a dog cannot fall into a doze ; a bird cannot whet 
his bill ; a pony cannot have a peculiar nose, nor a pig one 
ear, but out peeps the first germ of " a character." Nor 
does the ruling tendency and seed-filled hand stop with such 
as these ; for inanimate objects become endowed with con- 
sciousness and purpose, and mingle appropriately in the 
back-ground of the scene. Sometimes they even act as 
principals, and efficient ones too, either for merriment and 
light comedy, genial beauty and sweetness, or the most 
squalid pantomimists of the " heavy line of business." 
Lamb particularly notices what he terms " the dumb 
rhetoric of the scenery — for tables, and chairs, and joint- 
stools in Hogarth are living and significant things," and 
Hazlitt very finely remarks on the drunken appearance of 
the houses in " Gin Lane," which " seem reeling and 
tumbling about in all directions, as if possessed with the 
frenzy of the scene." All this is equally apparent in the 
works of Dickens. He not only animates furniture, and 
stocks and stones, or even the wind, with human purposes, 
but often gives them an individual rather than a merely 
generalized character. To his perceptions, old deserted 
broken-windowed houses grow crazed with " staring each 
other out of countenance," and crook-backed chimney-pots 
in cowls turn slowly round with witch-like mutter and sad 



CHARLES DICKENS. 21 

wliisperiiig moan, to cast a hollow spell upon the scene. 
The interior of the house of the miser Gride,* where there 
stands an " old grim clock, whose iron heart beats heavily 
within its dusty case," and where the tottering old clothes- 
presses " slink away from the sight" into their melancholy 
murky corners — is a good instance of this; and yet equally 
so is the description of the houset in which the Kenwigses, 
Newman Noggs, and Crowl, have their abode, where the 
parlour of one of them is, perhaps, " a thought dirtier" 
(no substantial difference being possible to the eye, the room 
is left to its own self-consciousness) than any of its 
neighbours, and in front of which " the fowls who peck 
about the kennels, jerk their bodies hither and thither with 
a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt." 
Nor can we forget the neighbourhood of " Todgers's," 
where " strange, solitary pumps were found hiding them- 
selves, for the most part, in blind alleys, and keeping com- 
pany with fire-ladders. "I All these things are thoroughly 
characteristic of the condition and eccentricity of the in- 
mates, and of the whole street, even as the beadle's pocket- 
book, " which, like himself, was corpulent." A gloomy 
building, with chambers in it, up a yard, where it had so 
little business to be, " that one could scarcely help fancying 
it must have run there when it was a young house, playing 
at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the 
way out again ;"§ and the potatoes, which, after Cratchit 
had blown the fire, " bubbled up and knocked loudly at the 
saucepan lid, to be let out, and peeled "|| — these are among 
the innumerable instances to which we have alluded. These 
descriptions and characteristics are always appropriate ; and 
are not thrown in for the mere sake of fun and farcicality. 
That they have, at the same time, a marvellous tendency 
to be very amusing, may cause the skeptic to shake his 
head at some of these opinions ; the pleasurable fact, nev- 
ertheless, is in any case quite as well for the author and his 
readers. 

Mr. Dickens's characters, numerous as they are, have 
each the roundness of individual reality combined with gen- 
eralization — most of them representing a class. The meth- 

* Nicholas Nickleby, vol. ii. chap. 56. t IWd. vol. ii. chap. 14. 

i Martin Chuzzlewil, chap. 9. >J Christmai Carol, p. 18. 

II Ibid. p. 87. 



22 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



od by which he accomplishes this, is worth observing, and 
easily observed, as the process is always the same. He 
never developes a character from within, but commences by 
showing how the nature of the individual has been developed 
externally by his whole life in the world. To this effect, he 
first paints his portrait at full-length ; sometimes his dress 
before his face, and most commonly his dress and demean- 
our. When he has done this to his satisfaction, \\g feds in 
the man, and the first words that man utters are the key- 
note of the character, and of all that he subsequently says 
and does. The author's hand never wavers, never becomes 
untrue to his creations. What they promise to be at first 
(except in the case of Mr. Pickwick, about whom the au- 
thor evidently half-changed his mind as he proceeded) they 
continue to the end. 

That Mr. Dickens often caricatures, has been said by 
many people ; but if they examined their own minds they 
would be very likely to find that this opinion chiefly origin- 
ated, and was supported by certain undoubted caricatures 
among the illustrations. Le celebre Cruiskank — as the 
French translator of "Nicholas Nickleby" calls him, ap- 
pears sometimes to have made his sketches without due re- 
ference, if any, to the original. These remarks, however, 
are far from being intended to invalidate the great excel- 
lence of many of the illustrations in "Oliver Twist" and 
"Nicholas Nickleby," and also of those by Hablott Brown 
and Cattermole in " Barnaby Rudge" and " Martin Chuz- 
zlewit." 

What a collection — what a motley rout — what a crowd — 
what a conflict for precedence in the mind, as we pause to 
contemplate these beings with whom Mr. Dickens has over- 
peopled our literature. Yet there are but few which, all 
things considered, we should wish to " emigrate." The 
majority are finished characters — not sketches. Of those 
which were most worthy of their high finish many instantly 
arise in person to supersede the pen. Mr. Pecksniff, sit 
down ! — you are not asked to address the chair on behalf 
of the company. Nor need Sam Weller commence clear- 
ing a passage with one hand, and pulling forward Mr. Pick- 
wick with the other : nobody can speak satisfactorily for an 
assemblage composed of such heterogeneous elements. The 
cordial welcome which would be so very applicable to Old 



CHARLES DICKENS. 23 

Fezzivvig, John Browdie, Newman Noggs, Tom Pinch, and 
a hundred others, would fall very unintelligibly on the air 
on turning to the face of Ralph Nickleby, Mr. Brass, Jonas 
Chuzzlewit, and a hundred others. What variety and con- 
trast, yet what truth, in such characters as Oliver Twist 
and Barnaby Rudge, the Yankee agent Scadder, and Hugh, 
Mr. Varden and Mr. Brass, Nelly's grandfather, and Mr. 
Stiggins ! Nor should we forget Sykes's dog. Kit's pony, 
and Barnaby's raven. But however excellent our author 
may be in his men, he is equally so with his women. x\Irs. 
Weller, and Mrs. Nickleby, Mrs. Jarley and Miss Montfla- 
thers, Mrs. Gamp, the Marchioness, Mrs. Varden, the 
widow who accused Mr. Pickwick, the sisters Cherry and 
Merry, and little Nell, and many more, are all acquaintances 
for life. In his young lady heroines Mr. Dickens is not 
equally successful. They have a strong tendency to be un- 
romantically dutiful, which in real life is no doubt " an ex- 
cellent thing in woman," but it is apt, unless founded upon 
some truly noble principle, to become uninteresting in fic- 
tion. Their sacrifices to duty are generally common-place, 
conventional, and of very equivocal good, if not quite erro- 
neous. Some of the amiable old gentlemen are also of the 
description so very agreeable to meet in private life, but 
who do not greatly advantage the interest of these books, 
amidst the raciness and vigour of which they hardly form 
the right sort of contrast. With reference to his female 
characters, however, who are " better-halves," if his portraits 
be faithful representations, especially of the middle and lower 
classes — and it is greatly to be feared they are but too true, 
in many cases — then we shall discover the alarming amount 
of screws, scolds, tartars, and termagants, over whom her 
Britannic Majesty's liege married subjects male, pleasantly 
assume to be " lords and masters." France lifts its shoul- 
ders at it, and Germany turns pale. 

The materials of which the works under our present con- 
sideration are composed, are evidently the product of a fre- 
quent wayfaring in dark places, and among the most secret 
haunts where vice and misery hide their heads ; this way- 
faring being undertaken by a most observing eye, and a mind 
exactly suited to the qualities of its external sight. Many 
and important may be the individual biographical facts ; but 
if ever it were well said of an author that his " life" was in 



24 CHARLKS DICKENS. 

his books, (and a very full life too,) this might be said of 
Mr. Dickens. Amidst the variety of stirring scenes and 
characters which unavoidably surround every one who has 
duties to perform among mixed classes of mankind, and 
amidst the far darker scenes and characters which the bent 
of his genius caused him to trace out into their main sources 
and abodes, were the broad masses of his knowledge derived, 
and the principal faculties of his mind and heart wrought up 
to their capacious development. When he has not seen it 
before, he usually goes to see all that can be seen of a thing 
before he writes about it. To several of the characters he 
has drawn, objections have often been made, that they were 
exaggerations, or otherwise not perfectly true to nature. It 
is a mistake to think them untrue : they are, for the most 
part, facsimile creations, built up with materials from the 
life, as retained by a most tenacious memory. They are 
not mere realities, but the type and essence of real classes ; 
while the personal and graphic touches render them at the 
same time individualized. Sometimes, it is true, he draws 
a mere matter-of-fact common-place reality ; and these indi- 
viduals, like Mrs. Maylie, Mr. Brownlow, Harry Maylie, 
Mrs. Bedwin, (except when the latter wipes the tears from 
her eyes, and then wipes her spectacles' eyes by the uncon- 
scious force of association,) and several others, are a sort of 
failure " in a book " where they walk about with a very 
respectable and rather uncomfortable air. 

The delineation of characters constitutes so very much 
the more prominent and valuable portion of Mr. Dickens's 
works, that it is extremely difficult to detach them from any 
view of an entire production. Take away his characters, 
and the plots of his stories will look meagre and disconnected. 
He tells a very short story admirably ; but he cannot man- 
age one extending through a volume or two. His extended 
narrative is, in fact, a series of short stories, or pictures of 
active interest introducing new people, who are brought to 
bear more or less — scarcely at all, or only atmospherically, 
sometimes — upon the principals. Perhaps he may not have 
the faculty of telling a story of prolonged interest ; but, in 
any case, he has done right hitherto not to attempt it by any 
concentrating unity of action. Not any of his characters 
are weighty enough in themselves to stand " the wear and 
tear," and carry on the accumulating interests of a prolong- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 25 

ed narrative. They need adventitious aids and relief; and 
most ably and abundantly are these supplied. 

The immense circulation of Mr. Dickens's works, both 
at home and abroad, and the undoubted influence they exer- 
cise, render it an imperative duty to point out every thing in 
them which seems founded in error, and the moral tendency 
of which may be in any way and in any degree injurious. 
We are anxious to display his most striking merits — and 
every fault worth mentioning. Nor do we believe, when 
looking at the direct and benevolent aim which character- 
izes all the author's efforts, that such a proceeding can meet 
with any other feeling on his part than that of a frank ap- 
proval, even though he may not in all cases be disposed to 
admit the validity of the objections. 

The main design of Mr. Dickens is for the most part 
original, and he always has a moral aim in view, tending to 
effect practical good. The moral tendency of all his works 
is apparent, if they are regarded in their entireness as pic- 
tures of human nature, in which no romantic sympathy is 
sought to be induced towards what is vicious and evil — but 
antipathy and alarm at present misery and ultimate conse- 
quences — while a genuine heart-felt sympathy is induced 
towards all that is essentially good in human nature. This 
is true of all his works considered under general views ; in 
some of the details, however, the morality becomes doubtful 
from an undue estimate of conventional duty when brought 
into collision with the affections and passions. The author 
always has the purest and best intentions on this score; 
nevertheless, some of his amiable, virtuous and high spirited 
characters break down lamentably, when brought into con- 
flict with society's grave, misleading code on the subject of 
heart arid pocket, or " birth." Thus, Rose Maylie — the 
beautiful young heroine in " Oliver Twist " — refuses her 
devoted lover, whom she also loves, merely because she 
does not know who her parents were, and she is therefore of 
" doubtful birth,'' — and actually persists in her refusal. 
Nor is this compromise of the strongest and best feelings of 
nature to mere conventional douhts, the only objectionable 
part of the story ; for the act is spoken of as a fine thing in 
her to do, as inferring a refined feeling for her lover's honour 
and future satisfaction, though he, the man himself, declares 
he is satisfied with what she is, let her origin have been as 



26 CHARLES DICKENS. 

doubtful or as certain as it might. Being quite assured of 
his love, she tells him he " must endearour to forget her " — 
that he should think of " how many other hearts he might 
gain" — that he should make her the confidante " of some 
other passion." These are the wretched, aggravating insin- 
cerities so often employed in real life. It is not intended 
that Rose should be regarded as a fool or a coquette, or in 
any other disadvantageous light ; but on the contrary she is 
said to have " a noble mind," to be " full of intelligence ;" 
and that her characteristic is "self-sacrifice." Here, then, 
occurs the very equivocal, if not totally erroneous morality ; 
for so far from this act being simply one of " self-sacrifice," 
the fact is apparent that Rose sacrifices her lover's genuine 
unadulterated feeling to her overweening estimate of her own 
importance as a strictly correct-principled young lady in the 
social sphere. When he leaves the house early in the morn- 
ing with an aching heart, looking up in vain for a last 
glimpse, she secretly peeps at him from behind the window- 
curtains ! There is too much of this already in the actual 
world, and it should not be held up for admiration in works 
of fiction. She makes, finally, a very bad excuse about the 
duty she owes " to herself," which is, that she, not knowing 
her origin, and being portionless, should not bring any dis- 
grace upon her lover, and blight his " brilliant prospects ;" 
and rery much is also said about the great " triumphs" this 
young 'squire is to " achieve" in parliament and upwards, 
by " his great talents, and powerful connections." This 
only adds nonsense to the young lady's fiilse morality and 
prudery ; for the young 'squire is one of those ordinary sort 
of clever sparks, about whose great talents and probable 
achievements the less that is said the better.* 

It has been remarked that our author does not develope 
his characters from within, but describes them with a master- 
hand externally, and then leaves them to develope themselves 
by word and action, which they do most completely. His 
process is the converse of that of Godwin, who developes 
solely from within, and whose characters dilate as they ad- 
vance, and more than carry out the first principles of their 
internal natures with which we were made acquainted. On 
the other hand, let any one turn to the description of Rose 

* Oliver Twist, chaps. 29, 33, 34. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 27 

Maylie when she is first introduced, and then it will be seen 
that the expected character " breaks down," — nothing comes 
of it. Again : it must be admitted that Kate Nickleby is an 
admirable, high-spirited, and very loveable girl ; and that 
Nicholas Nickleby is a very excellent counterpart, and a 
young man of that sort of thorough-bred mettle, which wins 
regard and inspires entire confidence. Yet both, undoubt- 
edly fine spirits, get themselves into equivocal positions 
where their best and strongest feelings are concerned. Kate 
refuses the hand of Frank Cheeryble, because she is poor 
and he rich, and she has received kindness and assistance 
from his uncles : Nicholas gives up Madeline Bray, for pre- 
cisely the same reasons, — though in point of value, as human 
beings, Nicholas and Kate are very superior to the somewhat 
too real Mr. Frank, and the dutifully uninteresting Miss 
Madeline, who has consented — the old story of having a 
selfish father — to marry the miserly dotard, Arthur Gride. — 
Now, each of the parties is well aware of the love of the 
other, which they sacrifice to a minor moral. If the self- 
sacrifice of the individual were all that was involved in the 
question, then indeed gratitude and other secondary causes 
might perhaps be fairly allowed to influence the painful 
resignation of a higher feeling; but where the happiness of 
the beloved object — and this is the main point of the question 
— is involved, then the sacrifice becomes, to say the least of 
it, an equivocal morality — a certain evil, with some very 
doubtful good. At the head of the chapter which displays 
the quadruple sacrifice made by Nicholas and Kate, are these 
words — "Wherein Nicholas and his sister forfeit the good 
opinion of all worldly and prudent people." On the contra- 
ry ; what they do, is precisely in accordance with the opinion 
of the worldly and prudent, and would be certain to obtain 
the usual admiration. 

But the author's better genius is not to be thwarted by 
these half-measures and short-comings, and strict lines of 
duty ; for the truth of imagination is stronger in him than the 
prudence of all the world. Out of his own book will we 
convict him. After Kate has told her brother of her rejec- 
tion of the man who loved her, (and whom she loved,) on 
the grounds of her poverty and obligations to his uncle, her 
brother thus soliloquizes. " What man," thought Nicholas 
proudly, "would not be sufficiently rewarded for any sacri- 



28 CHARLES DICKENS. 

fice of fortune, by ilie possession of such a heart as this, 
which, but that" (here peeps in the extraneous misgiving) 
"hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy," (but this 
should not be so with lovers !) " is beyond all praise. Frank 
has money, and wants no more. More, would not buy him 
such a treasure as Kate ! And yet in unequal marriages 
the rich party is always supposed to make a great sacrifice, 
and the other to get a good bargain !" (And again, the 
misgiving in full force.) " But I am thinking like a lover, 
or like an ass, which I suppose is pretty nearly the same."* 
Instead of being an ass, this stumbling lover, who continues 
to run his head against the truth, rather figures as a moralist 
malgre bit. The vacillations in the above passage are strik- 
ing. The main truth of the question, however, is yet 
brought out unalloyed by the good heart of " brother Charles," 
who says banteringly to his nephew, " How dare you think, 
Frank, that we would have you marry for money, when 
youth, beauty, and every amiable virtue and excellence were 
to be had for love?" That is the point; well said, "old 
true-penny." Addressing Nicholas he thus continues : 
" Madeline's heart is occupied by you, and worthily and 
naturally. This fortune is destined to be yours, but you 
have a greater fortune in her, sir, than you would have in 
money, were it forty times told. "t Surely a sincere passion 
ought to teach all this to lovers, without waiting for a hint 
from the " warm" old gentleman of the story ! 

Yet again, an objection of another kind — for Mr. Dickens 
has quite enough strength to be dealt with unsparingly. It 
has been previously said, and the reasons for the opinion 
have been stated, that "Oliver Twist," the work which is 
open to most animadversion, has a beneficial moral tenden- 
cy, and is full of touches of tenderness, and pathos, and of 
generous actions and emotions. | The objection about to 
be offered, is on the ground of jnstice being made vindic- 
tive and ferocious, which, be it ever so just, has not a good 
moral tendency. This is said with reference to the death 
of a most detestable ruffian — Sykes — and it was important 
that no sympathy should, by any possibility, be induced 
towards so brutalized a villain. Such, however, is the 

* Nicholas Nickleby, chap. 61. f Ihid. chap. 63. 

X The authoi's introductory defence to the third edition we have only seen after 
finishing this essay. It is unanswerable, but ought not to have been needed. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 29 

case: for the author having taken over-elaborate and ex- 
treme pains to prevent it, the *' extremes meet." After the 
brutal murder of the poor girl Nancy, the perpetrator hur- 
ries away, he knows not whither, and for days and nights 
wanders and lurks about fields and lanes, pursued by the 
most horrible phantoms and imaginings, amidst exhaustion 
from hunger and fatigue and a constant terror of discovery. 
Far from making a morbid hero of him, in any degree, or 
being guilty of the frequent error of late years, that of en- 
deavouring to surround an atrocious villain with various 
romantic associations, Mr. Dickens has shown the mur- 
derer in all his wretchedness, horror, and utter bewilder- 
ment consequent on his crime. So far, the moral tendency 
is perfect. A climax is required ; and here the author 
overshoots his aim. Perhaps, in reality, no retribution, on 
earth, could very well be too heavy for such a detestable 
wretch as Sykes to suffer ; but we cannot bear to see so 
much. The author hunts down the victim, like a wild 
beast, through mud and mire, and darkness, and squalid 
ways, with crowds upon crowds, like hell-hounds gnashing 
and baying at his heels. Round the grim and desolate old 
edifice, the haunt of crime and desperation, rising out of a 
deep corrosion of filth, as if it had actually grown up, like 
a loathsome thing out of the huge ditch, — round this dark- 
some and hideous abode, in which the murderer has taken 
his last refuge with thrice-barred doors, the infuriate masses 
of human beings accumulate, throng upon throng, like 
surge after surge, all clamouring for his life. Hunted with 
tenfold more ferocity than ever was fox, or boar, or mid- 
night wolf — having scarce a chance of escape — certain to 
be torn and trampled amidst his mad, delirious struggles, 
into a miry death, when caught — our sympathies go with 
the hunted victim in this his last extremity. It is not 
" Sykes, the murderer," of whom we think — it is no longer 
the "criminal" in whose fate we are interested — it is for 
that one worn and haggard man with all the world against 
him — that one hunted human creature, with an infuriate 
host pursuing him, howling beneath for his blood, and 
striving to get at him, and tear him limb from limb. All 
his old friends turn away from him — look mutely at him 
and aghast — and down below, all round the hideous house, 
in hideous torch-light boils up the surging sea of a mad- 



30 CHARLES DICK«NS. 

dened multitude. His throwing up the window, and mena- 
cing the crowd below, had a grandeur in it — it rouses the 
blood — we menace with him — we would cast off from his 
plunging horse, that man who " showed such fury," and 
offered money for his blood — from the bridge, that man who 
incessantly called out that the hunted victim would escape 
from the back — and we would have silenced the voice from 
the broken wall, that screamed away the last chance of a 
desperate man for his life. In truth, we wonld have fairly 
had him escape — whether to die in the black moat below, 
or alone in some dark and far-off field. We are with this 
hunted-down human being, brought home to our sympathies 
by the extremity of his distress ; and we are not with the 
howling mass of demons outside. The only human beings 
we recognize are the victim — and his dog. 

If the above feeling be at all shared by general readers, 
it will then appear that Mr. Dickens has defeated his own 
aim, and made the criminal an object of sympathy, owing 
to the vindictive fury with which he is pursued to his 
destruction, because the author was so anxious to cut him 
off from all sympathy. The overstrained terror of the 
intended moral, has thus an immoral tendency. It may, 
perhaps, be argued that as the sympathy only commences at 
that very point, where the detestable individual is lost sight 
of, and verges into the generalized impression of a human 
being in the last degree of distress — there is no sympathy 
given to the criminal? The moment he is again thought 
of as the murderer Sykes, the sympathy vanishes; and 
therefore no harm is done. This would present very fair 
grounds for a tough metaphysical contest, but it is never 
good to throw the feelings into a puzzle, and we prefer to 
enter a direct protest against the accumulation of vindictive 
ferocity with which this criminal is pursued, as tending to 
defeat the unquestionable moral aim of the author. 

Certainly not the highest, but certainly the most prom- 
inent characteristic of Mr. Dickens's mind, is his humour. 
His works furnish a constant commentary on the distinc- 
tion between wit and humour ; for of sheer wit, either in 
remark or repartee, there is scarcely an instance in any of 
his volumes, while of humour there is a fulness and gusto 
in every page, which would be searched for in vain to such 
an extent, among all other authors. It is not meant that 



CHARLES DICKENS. 31 

there are not several authors, and of the present time, who 
might equal the best points of humour in any of Mr. Dick- 
ens's works, but there is no author who can " keep it up" as 
he does; no author who can fill page after page with unfail- 
ing and irresistible humour, the only " relief" to which, if 
any, shall be fun, and the exuberance of animal spirits — a 
surplus vitality like that which makes him, after signing his 
name to a letter or note, give such a whirl of flourishing, 
which resembles an immense capering over a thing done, 
before he is " off" to something else. No other author 
could have written the whole of chapter twenty-nine of 
" Martin Chuzzlewit," — nor perhaps the last two pages. 
Frequently, the humour is combined with the richest irony 
— as at the funeral of old Anthony Chuzzlewit, where the 
doctor and the undertaker affect not to know each other. Fre- 
quently the humour takes the appearance of burlesque and 
farce, as when Mr. Bumble the Beadle puts on his cocked 
hat, and dances round the tea-table, — but when it is recol- 
lected that he has been courting the mistress of the place, 
and has just discovered himself to be an accepted man, and 
that she has left him alone in the room in the first glow of 
conscious success, the genuine humour of the proceeding 
becomes manifest. Sometimes, the humour not only takes 
the show of mere animal spirits, but may be said to depend 
solely upon them, and to set the lack of wit at utter defi- 
ance, as by absolute challenge. This is often done in the 
person of Master Charley Bates,* who usually falls into 
shouts of merriment at nothing in itself laughable ; and of 
John Browdie,t who once nearly chokes himself, displaying 
a great red face and round eyes, and coughing and stamp- 
ing about with immoderate laughter — and all for the poor- 
est jokes. The joke is felt to be nothing, yet the effect 
upon John Browdie is so palpable that it is irresistible to 
the beholder. In like manner, Mr. Mould | palates, and 
relishes, and repeats, one of the very smallest and driest of 
jokes, because it has a directly professional application that 
tickles him ; and such is his unaffected delight, that at last, 
witless as it is, the humorous effect is unquestionable. But 
if such points as these might be equalled by several other 
authors, there are various scenes in the works of Mr. Dick- 

* See Oliver Twist. t Nicholas Nickleby. J Sec Martin Chuzzlewit. 



32 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



ens, which are peculiar to himself for their fulness of hu- 
rtiour, mingled with subtle irony, and knowledge of life and 
character, and are in their combinations unlike any other 
author. No other author, of past or present times, so far 
as can be judged by their productions, could have written 
several scenes, or chapters, taken entire, as they stand in 
the works of " Boz." For instance, the whole chapter in 
which Mr. Mould, the undertaker, is discovered in his do- 
mestic relations,* where the very nature of the whole man 
is brought out by the fulsome palavering gossip of the nurse, 
Mrs. Gamp, who has been " recommended" by Mr. Mould 
to nurse a certain sick man, and whose permission she 
comes to ask that she may go and nurse another sick man 
all night, and thus receive pay from both. Another nurse, 
recommended by Mr. Mould, was attending upon the latter 
sick man by day — and it is therefore evident that she also 
leaves her charge at night to go probably to do duty else- 
where. Hence it appears that four sick people are neglect- 
ed during twelve hours out of each twenty-four, so that Mr. 
Mould has good chances of a funeral or two among them. 
Nothing of this kind is said — nothing is thrown up to the 
surface of the scene except its racy humour — but are not 
the inferences palpable in their keen irony '? The scene 
where this horrid nurse, Mr.s. Gamp, goes to fill her office 
by the sick bed for the night t is an unexampled mixture of 
the humorous, the grotesque, the characteristic, and detest- 
able — to say nothing of the practical service of the " warn- 
ing." Two other scenes occur to the mind, which, for the 
richness of their humour and character, and the thorough 
knowledge the author has of " his men," are, in their way, 
quite unparalleled and unrivalled in literature. We allude 
to the scenes where the two men who, in their circum- 
stances, and the external character they supported, would 
have been the last voluntarily to lose those wits which were 
so very necessary always to be kept " about them," did ac- 
tually lose the same for a time by getting intoxicated — need 
it be said that these two men are the methodist preacher 
Mr. Stiggins, called " the Shepherd ;"| and the plausible, 
smooth-surfaced, self-possessed hypocrite, Mr. Pecksnift'§ — 
the character which bids fair to be, when the work is finish- 

* Martin Chuzzlewit, chap. 05. f Ibid. chap. 25. 

J The Pickwick Papers. § Martin Chuzzlewit, chap. 9. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 33 

ed, the master-piece of all the author's numerous characters, 
or rivalled only by the more subtle delineation of young 
Martin Chuzzlewit. If ever the conflicting proverbs, that 
" liquor disguises a man" — and, that " drunkenness exposes 
a man," were brought to a final issue in favour of the exposi- 
tion of nature induced by the latter, here may it be witness- 
ed in those two inimitable scenes. They not only display 
the secret capacities and the habitual bent of the mind, but 
may also be regarded as physiological studies. A man of 
genius, to develope and set forth the noble objects of his 
soul, need not absolutely possess great physical energies, for 
his work can wait — whether he be above ground or beneath 
it; but a charalatan, to succeed, must possess a strong 
physique, for his work cannot wait, and he must reap while 
he lives, or not at all. In the most humorous and strictly 
characteristic manner — yet without the least apparent pur- 
pose — the physique of the Shepherd, and of Mr. Pecksniff, 
is displayed in these scenes, and we there discover how 
much secret strength was necessary to enable them to main- 
tain, at all other times, their bland and unruflled exterior, 
and to repress and govern so much dangerous " stuff' 
within them. The grave, oily, most respectable Mr. Peck 
sniff, after being repeatedly put to bed, yet as repeatedly 
jumping up again, and appearing at the top of the landing- 
place, in his shirt, discoursing with polite, half-conscious 
absurdity over the bannisters, gives a finish to his character, 
such as no other condition of affairs could accomplish, and 
no words so exquisitely portray. It is the same man, drunk, 
who, being sober, had the strength of self-possession — when 
his house was filled with confusion, and the last man he 
wished to see that confusion, was at his door — to settle the 
dangerous parties in different rooms, and putting on a gar- 
denfng hat, open the door himself with a demure face and a 
spade^in his hand ! " The force of humour could no fur- 
ther go." 

But if Mr. Dickens does not display any thing of what is 
recognized as sheer wit in his writings, he frequently in- 
dulges in irony, and sometimes in sarcasm. To his great 
credit, these instances are never of a morbid misanthropical 
kind, and in the shape of tranchant side-hits and stabs at 
human nature ; they will almost invariably be found direct- 
ed aaainst social wrongs, " the insolence of office," against 

3 



34 CHARLES DICKF.NS. 

false notions of honour, against mere external respectability, 
and with a view to defend the poor against injustice and 
oppression. His favourite method, however, of exposing 
and attacking wrongs, and " abating nuisances," is through 
the humorous display of characters actively engrossed with 
their own objects and designs. With theories, or systems of 
philosophy, which are not to his mind, he also deals in a 
similar style of pleasantry. The opening pages of Chapter 
XIII. of " Oliver Twist," are an admirable instance. 

If it be an interesting thing to trace the cause and means 
of a man's rise to fame, and the various methods by which 
he mastered obscurity amidst all the crowd struggling for 
the same narrow door, and fairly won the sympathy, the ad- 
miration, and the gold of contemporaneous multitudes, — it 
is no less curious and interesting to observe the failures of 
successful men, their miscalculations at the very height of 
the game, and the redoubled energy and skill with which 
they recovered their position. Few are perhaps aware that 
Mr. Dickens once wrote an Opera ; not very many perhaps 
know that he wrote a Farce for the theatre, which was 
acted ; and the great majority of his readers do not at all 
care to remember that he wrote a " Life of Grmialdi," in 
two volumes. The opera was set to music very prettily by 
Hullah, and was produced at the St. James's theatre ; but, 
somehow, it vanished into space ; albeit, at dusty old book- 
stalls, pale-faced near-sighted men, poking over the broken 
box or tea-chest that usually contains the cheap sweepings 
of the stock within, avouch that once or twice they have 
caught a glimpse of the aforesaid lyrics, labelled price three- 
pence. As for the theatrical piece, it " went off" in a 
smoke, with Harley wringing his hands at the top of the 
cloud ; and for the " Life of Grimaldi," every body was dis- 
appointed with it, because, although Joseph was certainly 
in private " no fool," yet as the only hold he had upon our 
sympathies was with reference to his merry-makings at 
Christmas-tide, the public certainly did not expect to find 
most of that set aside, and in its place a somewhat melan- 
choly narrative hopeless of all joyous result from the first, 
yet endeavouring to be pleasant " on the wrong side of the 
mouth." It was like the rehearsal of a pantomime, the poor 
clown being of course in " plain clothes," and having pains 
in his limbs, from a fall. It was a sad antithesis to expec- 
tation, and all old associations. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 35 

Leaving these failures behind him with so light a pace 
that no one heard him moving off, aiid never once turning 
back his head, — which might have attracted the public at- 
tention to his ill-luck — our author started forward on his 
way, as if nothing had happened 

The slowness, and dogged grudging with which the 
English public are brought lo admit of great merit, except 
in cases where their admiration is suddenly carried oft' un- 
awares from them, is only to be equalled by the prodigality 
of disposition towards a favourite once highly established. 
And this influences all classes, more or less. A recent in- 
stance must have caused our author great merriment. At 
a public dinner a short time since, Mr Serjeant Talfourd, 
regretting the absence of his friend Mr. Dickens, paid an 
appropriate and well-merited compliment to the breadth of 
surface over which the life, character, and general know- 
ledge contained in his works, extended. The reporter not 
rightly hearing this, or not attending to it, but probably 
saying to himself, ' Oh — it's about Dickens — one can't go 
wroncr,' gave a version of the learned Serjeant's speech in 
the next morning's paper, to the effect that Mr. Dickens's 
genius comprised that of all the greatest minds of the time, 
put together, and that his works represented all their works. 
The high ideal and imaginative — the improvements in the 
steam-engine and machinery — all the new discoveries in 
anatomy, geology, and electricity, with the prize cartoons, 
and history and philosophy thrown into the bargain, — search 
from the " Sketches by Boz" to Martin Chuzzlewit in- 
clusive, and you shall find, in some shape or other " pro- 
perly understood," every thing valuable which the world of 
letters elsewhere contains. The gratuitous gift of this con- 
fused accumulation, is only to be equalled by the corre- 
sponding gift of " madness," with which our most amusing, 
and, in his turn, most amused author was obligingly favoured 
by an absurd report, extensively circulated, some year or 
two ago. 

The true characteristics of Mr. Dickens's mind are 
strongly and definitively marked — they are objective, and 
always have a practical tendency. His universality does 
not extend beyond the verge of the actual and concrete. 
The ideal and the elementary are not his region. 

Having won trophies over so large a portion of the intel- 



36 CHARLES DICKENS. 

lectual and plastic world, Mr. Dickens projected a flight 
into the ideal hemisphere. Accordingly he gave us Master 
Humphrey, and his Clock. The design had a sort of Ger- 
man look ; but the style in which it opened was precisely 
that adopted by the American novelist Brockden Brown, 
(a man of original genius beyond doubt — the author of 
" Carwin," " Wieland," &c.,) in one of his works espe- 
cially, we forget which. The introduction, which only 
bordered upon the ideal, and seemed to be a preliminary 
softening of our mortal earth, with a view to preparing it 
for " fine air," was no sooner over than the reader had to 
commence a second preparation, called an " Introduction 
to the Giant Chronicles," which was going back to the old 
style of " Boz," and seemed like giving the matter up at 
the outset. The "First Night of the Giant Chronicles " 
settled the business. The real giant, " Boz," could make 
nothing of the ideal giants — they turned out to be mere 
Guildhall fellows, pretending to know something beyond 
the city. The " Clock Case" was a dead failure, so was 
the " Deaf Gentleman," so was the " Correspondence." 
Affairs began to look ominous. A brief story of tragic 
interest was told, and finely. It diverted the attention ; but 
the author was obliged to proceed with his series, and ac- 
cordingly he commenced " The Old Curiosity Shop" — a 
sufficiently vague title, which might lead to any thing or 
nothing — and then we had some fresh failures in the shape 
of " Correspondence." Now, if the author had been a vain 
man, or a wrong-headed, purblind egotist, resolved to go on 
with something unsuitable to his mind, and to insist upon 
success with all fact and fancy, and nature and art, against 
him, then it would have been all over with the popularity 
of the renowned " Boz." Instead of which, the author's 
good sense, self-knowledge, adroitness, and tact, made him 
clearly see the true state of the case, and the surest remedy; 
he accordingly called up to the rescue some old-established 
favourites, and after introducing Mr. Pickwick to Master 
Humphrey, and bringing Sam Weller and old Weller into 
the kitchen beneath the luckless " Clock," he literally un- 
dermined his own failure, and blew it up, as soon as he saw 
the prospect of a clear field before him. It was well done. 
The wood-cut at the end of the " Old Curiosity Shop," in 
which Master Humphrey is represented seated in his chair. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 37 

surrounded by elves, fairies, and grotesque spirits — is all 
very much in the way of Tieck, and Hoffman, but out of 
Mr. Dickens's way, and he rapidly abandoned it. 

In his delightful little book — a better hearted one never 
issued from the press — called " A Christmas Carol" in 
prose, something of the same kind is again attempted, and 
certainly with success. In his conception, description, and 
management of the First and Third of the Spirits that visit 
Scrooge, there are the true elements of the supernatural 
world. They are " high German" and first-rate. The 
allegorical description of the Spirit of the Past, is perfect. 
As for the jolly Giant, he is a modern Goth. The knocker 
which changes into Marley's dead-alive face, and yet re- 
mains a knocker, is taken from Hoffman's "Golden Pot;" 
but there is abundance of genuine supernaturalism about 
him which must have been made on the spot. 

Our author is conspicuous for his graphic powers. All 
his descriptions are good, often excellent; sometimes, both 
for minute truths and general effect, perfect. Humorous 
descriptions are his forte ; and serious description is no less 
his forte, though he far less often indulges in it. Perhaps 
it may be said that his eye is " worth all his other senses ;" 
at all events, it is never "made the fool" of the other 
senses — except where it ought to be so (sympathetically) in 
describing objects seen through the medium of passion. It 
will presently be shown that this exception constitutes one 
of the finest elements, if not the finest element of his genius. 
But the feature in his writings, now under consideration, is 
the power he possesses of describing things as they actually 
exist — in fact, of seeing so much more in a given space and 
time than people usually do, of copying it down in the words 
most appropriate to bring it before other minds, and of 
faithfully recollecting and harmoniously combining his ma- 
terials. After describing the furniture and decorations of 
a room — walls — floor, and ceiling — and alluding to two dif- 
ferent groups of people, the author carelessly says : " Ob- 
serving all this in the first comprehensive glance with which 
a stranger surveys a place that is new to him, &c."* A 
stranger indeed! It is well, perhaps, for many " interiors" 
that every stranger who justs pops in his head, does not 

* Nicholas Nickleby, vol. i. chap. 32. 



38 CHARLES DICKENS. 

always see quite so much. The reader may also recollect, 
perhaps, the entrance of Mrs. Gamp into the sick chamber, 
who, with one glance round, sees the contents of the room, 
and the prospect of chimney-pots, and gable-ends, and roofs, 
and gutters, out at the garret window !* 

It is not necessary to make any reraark on the descrip- 
tions given of the dress and otlier external appearances of 
the characters introduced by Mr. Dickens, except to say 
that he considers such descriptions display the character in 
all its individuality. He does not distinctly say this, but 
his opinion incidentally slips out in speaking of the Massa- 
chusetts Asylum for the Blind. t He resembles Sir Walter 
Scott in this respect, and like Scott, he also frequently gives 
the portrait minutely. Some of the faces of his men are 
drawn with the tangible truth of Hans Holbein, such as the 
Yankee agent Scadder,f the man with two different profiles 
— one alive and teeming with palpable rascality, the other 
like a dead wall with a thief behind it. There is more done, 
however, in some instances than merely giving the portrait, 
— its expression is given at a critical moment; and, in one 
instance, the reflection of expression from face to face is 
displayed under the influence of strong excitement, in which 
the very physiology of family characteristics boils up through 
and above all differences of nature and circumstance, shines 
out with a light at once noble yet devilish, and culminates 
on a common centre of passion. The scene is between 
Ralph, Nicholas, and Kate Nickleby.^ 

In describing local scenery, Mr. Dickens is generally 
faithful and minute ; his inventions of scenery are rather 
(as such things should be) transcripts from memory care- 
fully combined. His " American Notes" have not been 
valued so much as they deserve, on account of certain 
manifest exaggerations of travelling scenes, (not of sea- 
faring, for that is all true enough,) and also because the 
public wanted something more, and something less, they 
hardly knew what. But if his excellent and humanely- 
purposed accounts of public institutions do not obtain for 
these volumes a sufficient regard, the descriptions they con- 
tain of American " locations," and of wood-scenery, parti- 
cularly in canal-travelling, ought to give them a permanent 

* Martin Chuzzlewit, chap. 25. f American Note?, vol. i. chap. 3. 

X Martin Chuzzlewit, chap. 21. 4 Nicholas Nickloby, chap. 54. 



CHARLES DICKKNS. 39 

position as historical landscape records to be referred to in 
future years when the face of that great country has become 
changed. Any one who has travelled in those parts can 
hardly fail to recognize the perfect truth of these descrip- 
tions, many of which must have been copied down on the 
spot. 

Amidst the various sets of somewhat elaborate memo- 
randa, notes, and outlines, from which this essay is written, 
there are iew more numerous in references than our slip of 
paper headed with " Happy Words and Graphic Phrases." 
As when the avaricious dotage of the toothless old miser, 
Arthur Gride, is cheered with a prospect of success, to 
which he returns no other answer than " a cackle of great 
delight;" as when the placards of a company of strolling 
players, are issued " with letters afflicted with every possi- 
ble variety of spinal deformity ;" as when the watery cur- 
rents " toyed and sported" with the drowned body of Q,uilp, 
" now bruising it against the slimy piles, now hiding it in 
mud or lonor rank grass, now drawgincr it heavily over rouwh 
stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own ele- 
ment, and in the same action luring it away," &c. ; as 
when a set of coffin-lids standing upright, cast their shadows 
on the wall "like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands 
in their pockets ;" and an old harpsichord in a dusty cor- 
ner, is described by " its jingling anatomy ;'' as when Mr. 
Pecksniff, overcome with wine, speaks of the vain endea- 
vour to keep down his feelings, " for the more he presses 
the bolster upon them, the more they look round the cor- 
ner !" Or, when it is said of one of those wooden figure- 
heads that adorn ships' bows, and timber yards, that it was 
" thrusting itself foi'ward with that excessively wide-aivake 
aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive politeness by which 
figure-heads are usually characterized." All these, more- 
over, tend to establish the statement previously made as to 
the predominating feature of characterization displayed 
throughout Mr. Dickens's works, and the consequent diffi- 
culty of separating this feature from almost every other, so 
inwoven is it into the texture of the whole. The first two 
paragraphs of the chapter which opens with the description 
of the interior of the house of the miser Gride, for graphic 
truth and originality, as applied to the endowment of old 
furniture with the very avariciousness and personal charac- 



40 CHARLES DICKENS. 

ter of their owner, yet without the loss of their own identity 
as old furniture, or any assistance from preternatural fan- 
cies, are probably without parallel in the literature of this 
or any other country.* 

Mr. Dickens's style is especially the graphic and humor- 
ous, by means of which he continually exhibits the most 
trifling and common-place things in a new and amusing 
light. Owing to the station in life of the majority of his 
characters, a colloquial dialect of the respective classes is 
almost unavoidable ; even his narrative style partakes of the 
same familiarity, and is like telling the listener " all about 
it ;" but no one else ever had the same power of using an 
abundance of "slang" of all kinds, without foffence, and 
carrying it off, as well as rendering it amusing by the com- 
edy, or tragic foice of the scene, and by its unaffected 
appropriateness to the utterers. Sometimes, however, cer- 
tain of these licenses are not so fitly taken by the author, 
where they accidentally slip out of the dialogue into the nar- 
rative ; nor can good taste approve of the title-page of 
" Martin Chuzzlewit," which reminds one of some of the 
old quack and conjuring treatises, servant-maids' dream- 
books, or marvellous tracts of bigoted biography and old- 
fashioned rhodomontade. It is unworthy of the work, 
which, so far as can be judged at present, vv^ill probably be 
its author's most highly-finished production. 

The " Sketches by Boz" are, for the most part, rather 
poor affairs. Except the " Visit to Newgate" — the " Hos- 
pital Patient," and the " Death of the Drunkard" — espe- 
cially the death-bed scene in the second, and the delirium 
and suicide of the last, which are fearfully truthful and im- 
pressive — there are few of the papers which are above medi- 
ocrity. 

That far higher qualities have been discovered in him, 
by certain students of literature, not only in Eugland, but 
on the continent of Europe, than his " Sketches," and the 
"Pickwick Papers" contain, can hardly admit of doubt; 
nevertheless a few remarks may be offered in addition to 
what has previously been said, to explain more popularly 
the grounds which men of intellect have for " the faith that 
is in them" with regard to the genius of Mr Dickens. 

* Nicholas Nickleby, chap. 51. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 41 

So far as a single epithet can convey an impression of 
the operation of his genius, it may be said that Mr. Dickens 
is an instinctive writer. His best things are suddenly re- 
vealed to him ; he does not search for them in his mind ; 
they come to him ; they break suddenly upon him, or drop 
out of his pen. He does not tax his brain, he transcribes 
what he finds writing itself there. This is the peculiar pre- 
rogative of a true creative genius. His instincts manifest 
themselves in many subtle ways, both seriously and humor- 
ously. Thus ; when Lord Verisopht, the foolish young 
nobleman who has wasted his life in all sorts of utter folly, 
is on his way to fight a duel which is fated to close his 
career, it is said that " the fields, trees, gardens, hedges, 
every thing looked very beautiful ; the young man scarcely 
seemed to have noticed them before, though he had passed 
the same objects a thousand times."* The whole of the 
passage should be carefully read : it is deeply pathetic. It 
is a*? though Nature, whom the foolish young lord had for- 
gotten during his whole life, had gently touched his heart, 
reminding him that he should take one look at her, thus to 
refine and sweeten with her balmy tenderness and truth the 
last brief interval of his existence. It should also be re- 
marked that the author calls him " the young man " this 
once only — previously he was always a scion of nobility — 
now he is simplified for the grave. No hard study and 
head-work, no skill in art and writing, can produce such 
things as these. They are the result of a fine instinct iden- 
tifying itself with given characters, circumstances, and ele- 
mentary principles. When Sykes hurries homeward with 
the determination of destroying the girl, it is said that he 
" never once turned his head to the right or left, or raised 
his eyes to the sky, or lowered them to the ground, but 
looked straight before him ;"t and this will be found to be 
the invariable characteristic of every fierce physical resolu- 
tion in advancing towards its object. Before he commits 
the murder he extinguishes the candle though it is scarce 
daybreak, but says that " there is light enough for what he 
has got to do" — the tone of expression suggesting a vague 
notion of some excuse to himself for his contemplated fero- 
city, as if it were a sort of duty. Allusion may also be 

* Nicholas Nickleby, chap. 50. t Oliver Twist, chap. 45. 



42 CHARLES DICKENS. 

made to his not daring to turn his back towards the dead 
body all the time he remained in the room ; to the circum- 
stances attending his flight, and to the conduct of his dog. 
The same fine instinct is displayed, in a different form, in the 
circumstances preceding the suicide of Ralph Nickleby ; — 
the hideous churchyard for the poor — his recollections of 
having been one of a 'jury, long before, on the body of a 
man who had cut his tliroat, and his looking through the 
iron railings " wondering which might be his grave ;" the 
set of drunken fellows vv'ho were passing, one of whom 
danced, at which a few bystanders laughed, and one of 
them looking round in Ralph's face, he, as if galvanized, 
echoed the laugh, and when they were gone recollected that 
the suicide whose grave he had looked for, had been merry 
when last seen before he had committed the act.* And 
again, the same instinct manifests itself in a perfectly dif- 
ferent mode in the deeply affecting conduct of the old grand- 
father — deep beyond tears — on the death of Nelly, and also 
after her death ;t and with equal truth and subtlety when 
Dennis, the hangman, has received sentence of death| — 
every word he utters is with the sense of strangulaticm upon 
liim, and a frantic struggling against visible fate. He 
" knows by himself" what thoughts are now passing in the 
mind of the man who is to execute him. Of a humorous 
kind the instances are too abundant even to be referred to;' 
one or two only shall be noticed. After Mr. Mould, the 
undertaker, has discoursed about certain prospective fune- 
rals, and looked out of his window into a churchyard " with 
an artist's eye to the graves," while sipping a tumbler of 
punch, he covers his head with a silk handkerchief, and 
takes a little nap § — an expressive comment upon an under- 
taker's composed and pleasant idea of death. When "poor 
Tom Pinch" has lighted old Martin Chuzzlewit with a Ian- 
thorn across the fields at night, he immediately blows out 
the candle for his own return || — prompted, as it seems, by 
a sensation of no sort of consequence being attached to him- 
self, and unconsciously influenced by the strictly frugal 
habits of his employer. In speaking to Jonas of a little sur- 
prise he contemplated for his daughters, (who evidently 

* Nicholas Nickleby, chap. G2. f The Old Cviriosity Shop, ch.nps. 71, 72. 

% Barnaby Rudge, chap. 76. § Martin Chuzzlewit, chap. 25. 

II Ibid. chap. 24. 



CIIAULES DICKENS. 43 

i knew all about it,) Mr. Pecksniff lowers his voice, and 
treads on tip-toe, though his daughters are two miles off;* 
his sensation actually coinciding with an imaginative im- 
pulse derived from his own lie. One more : the unfortu- 
nate Smike having been caught by Squeers, and brought to 
the house of Mr. Snawley, who is at supper, the latter de- 
clares " it is clear that there has been a Providence in it," 
— and this he utters casting his eyes down with an air of 
humility, and elevating his fork with a bit of lobster on the 
top of it, towards the ceiling. " Providence is against him, 
no doubt," replied Mr. Squeers, scratching his nose. "Of 
course, that was to be expected." Mr. Snawley, then ad- 
dressing the detestable Mr. Squeers, makes the moral 
reflection that " Hard-heartedness and evil doing will never 
prosper." " Never was such a thing known," rejoined 
Squeers, taking a roll of notes from his pocket-book, to see 
that they were all safe.f Let no lover of fun suppose that 
the ludicrous circumstances of this dialogue are merely 
introduced to produce a laugh at the graphic absurdity : 
they mark the hypocrisy and the total absence of any real 
sense of Providence, in these two scoundrels, while the last 
action of Squeers betrays a sudden instinctive conscious- 
ness, if not of his own villainy, at least of the consequences 
which sometimes ensue on such doings as his. 

Now, it may be said, that Mr. Dickens does not perhaps 
intend all this, which has been regarded as the workings of 
a fine instinctive faculty — that such things are accidental — 
that he is not conscious of such inferences himself, nor 
troubles his head about them, and that the critic is playing 
the part of Mr. Curdle, who wrote a long treatise to inquire 
whether the nurse's husband in Romeo and Juliet, really 
was " a merry man," which seemed doubtful from the fact 
of the one slender joke recorded of him. Possibly ; and if 
Mr. Dickens can write so suggestively by accident, " happy 
man be his dole." The trial scene of the Jew Fagin, is 
full of these wonderful " accidents." Howbeit, there are 
the fiction-facts ; and there the critic's comments ; the 
reader can settle the question to his own mind. It may, 
however, be observed that if such inferences were the mere 
invention or fancy of the present essayist, similar things 

* Martin Chuzzlewit, chap. 20. t Nicholas Nickleby, chap. 38. 



44 CHARLES DICKENS. 

would occur to him in reading the works of other novelists 
and writers of fiction. But they seldom do, except with the 
greatest writers, and with no others of the present time, in 
an equal degree. The very names given to so many char- 
acters — names which express the nature or peculiarity of 
the individual, and which are at once original, eccentric, 
humorous, and truthful, — would serve to prove that such a 
number of happy " hits," could never have been made unin- 
tentionally. But this unconsciousness .of the operation of 
their own genius, which was perhaps the case with nearly 
all the great writers of former times, hardly applies now 
with any force in our age of constant analysis and critical 
disquisition. During the actual moments of composition a 
great inventive genius will of course be forgetful of himself, 
and hoio he works, and where it all comes from ; but to suc- 
ceed in these days, with any chance of posterity, an author 
must know well what he is about. Some of the details of 
his execution may fairly bear more appropriate inferences 
than a man of genius literally intended; will continually do 
so ; but all such things in Mr. Dickens, and in other novel- 
ists and dramatists, are the spontaneous offspring of a mind 
that has started upon a well-understood course, and a nerv- 
ous system that lives in the characters and scenes of ima- 
ginative creation. 

Under the head of " instinctive writing " must also be 
classed those subtle intuitions which are the peculiar, and, 
perhaps, exclusive prerogative of a fine inventive genius. 
He describes (in " Oliver Twist ") very remarkable phenom- 
ena sometimes attending sleep as well as stupor, when objects 
of the external senses partially obtain admission, and are 
perceived by the dreaming mind ; representing a condition 
of knowledge without power, as though a foot were on either 
shore of the worldg of vision and reality, the soul bein^ con- 
scious of both, and eren of its own anomalous state. This, 
however, he may have experienced ; as, in like manner, what 
he describes (in the " American Notes") of the peculiar de- 
lirium and forlorn brain-wandering sometimes induced by 
prolonged sea-sickness. His portraiture of a heart-breaking 
twilight condition of fatuity, brought on by age, and want, 
and misery, are stronger cases in point, yet these he might 
have witnessed. But he can have no actual experience 
either in his own person or that of others, of what emotions 



CHARLES DICKENS. 45 

and thoughts are busy in the innermost recesses of the body 
and soul of the perpetrator of the worst crimes, — of the 
man condemned for death, of the suicide, and of those who 
are actually in the last struggle. Yet every body of ordinary 
imagination and sensibility has felt the vital truth of these 
descriptions, the home-stinging whisper, or loud cry, of 
Nature within his being, as he read them. 

Of the tragic power, the pathos, and tenderness con- 
tained in various parts of Mr. Dickens's works, many exam- 
ples have already been given, nor can space be afforded for 
more than a brief reference to one or two more. Nothing 
can be more striking than the last scenes in the lives of 
Hugh, of Dennis, and of Barnaby Rudge, each so different, 
yet so true to the character, — the first so suggestive of bar- 
baric greatness and sad waste of energies — the second so 
overwhelming in physical apprehensions, and revolting in 
abject wretchedness — the last so full of motley melancholy, 
resigned yet hopeless, a sweetness above despair, a brain for 
once blessed by an imbecility that places him beyond the 
cruel world, and meekly smiling at all its " capital " laws. 
The trial scene of Fagin is a master-piece of tragic genius. 
There are many little incidents in our author's works of the 
same kind as the following : — When the poor, mal-treated, 
half-starved boys all run away from the Yorkshire school, 
" some were found crying under hedges, and in such places, 
frightened at the solitude. One had a dead bird in a little 
cage ; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and when his 
poor favourite died, lost courage, and lay down beside him." 
During the riots described in Barnaby Rudge (chapter 77) — 
" One young man was hanged in Bishopsgate-street, whose 
aged grey-headed father waited for him at the gallows, 
kissed him at its foot when he arrived, and sat there on the 
ground till they took him down. They would have given 
him the body of his child; but he had no hearse, no coffin, 
nothing to remove it in, being too poor ; and walked meekly 
away beside the cart that took it back to prison, trying as 
he went to touch its lifeless hand." Words — few as they 
are — of heart-breaking humanity, the only comment upon 
which must be a silent, scalding tear. The death of Nelly, 
and her burial, are well-known scenes, of deep pathetic 
beauty. 

A curious circumstance is observable in a great portion 



46 CHARLES DICKENS. 

of the scenes last mentioned, which it is possible may have 
been the result of harmonious accident, and the author not 
even subsequently fully conscious of it. It is that they are 
written in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, 
which Southey and Shelley, and some other poets have occa- 
sionally adopted. The passage properly divided into lines, 
will stand thus, — 

NELLY'S FUNERAL. 

And now the bell — the bell 
Sh9 had so often heard by night and day, 
And listened to with solemn pleasure, 

E'en as a living voice — 
Rung its remorseless toll for her, 
So young, so beautiful, so good. 

Decrepit age, and vigorous life, 
And blooming youth, and helpless infancy, 
Poured forth — on crutches, in the pride of strength 
And health, in the full blush 
Of promise, the mere dawn of life — 
To gather round her tomb. Old men were there, 
Whose eyes were dim 
And senses failing — 
Grandames, who might have died ten years ago, 
And still been old — the deaf, the blind, the lame, 

The palsied. 
The living dead in many shapes and forms. 
To see the closing of this early grave. 

What was the death it would shut in. 
To that which still could crawl and creep above it ! 
Along the crowded path they bore her now ; 
Pure as the new-fallen snow 
That covered it ; whose day on earth 
Had been as fleeting. 
Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven 
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, 
She passed again, and the old church 
Received her in its quiet shade. 

Throughout the whole of the above only two unimpor- 
tant words have been omitted, — in and its; "grandames" 
has been substituted for " grandmothers," and "e'en" for 
" almost." All that remains is exactly as in the original, 
not a single word transposed, and the punctuation the same 
to a comma. The brief homily that concludes the funeral 
is profoundly beautiful. 

Oh 1 it is hard to take to heart 

The lesson that such deaths will teach, 

But let no man reject it. 
For it is one that all must learn. 
And is a mighty, universal Truth. 
When Death strikes down the innocent and young. 
For every fragile form from which he lets 

The parting spirit free, 

A hundred virtues rise, 



CHARLES DICKENS. 47 

In sliapes of myrcy, charity, and love, 
To walk tlie world and bless it. 
Of eveiy tear 
That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, 
Some good is horn, some gentler nature comes. 

Not a word of the originul is clianged in the above quo- 
tation, which is worthy ot" tlie best passages in Wordsworth, 
and thus, meeting on the common ground of a deeply truth- 
ful sentiment, the two most unlike men in the literature of 
the country are brought into the closest approximation. 
Something of a similar kind of versification in the prose 
may be discovered in Chap. 77 of "Barnaby Rudge." The 
following is from the concluding paragraph of " Nicholas 
Nickleby :"— 

The grass was green above the dead hoy's grave, 
Trodden by feet so small and light. 
That not a daisy drooped its head 

Beneath their pressure. 
Through all the spring and summer time 
Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands, 
Rested upon the stone. 

Such are the " kindly admixtures," as Charles Lamb 
calls the union of serious and comic characters and scenes 
in Hogarth, which are to be found in abundance throughout 
the works of Mr. Dickens. Following up his remark, 
Lamb adds that " in the drama of real life no such thing as 
pure tragedy is to be found ; but merriment and infelicity, 
ponderous crime, and feather-like variety," &c. Surely 
this is not sound as a theory of art 1 Pure tragedy is to be 
found in the drama of real life, if nothing else intervenes at 
the moment, or the principles are all too absorbed and 
abstracted to be conscious of the presence of any thing else. 
Pure tragedy, therefore, exists in nature, as well as in art; 
and ideal art obtains it by stopping short of all interference, 
and keeping the separation absolute. Another point of art 
of a different kind is in the fit and harmonious admixture of 
the opposite elements of tragedy and comedy, and a fine 
artist never confounds the two, or brings them into abrupt 
and offensive contrast and revulsion. Intermediate shades 
and gradations are always given. It is one of Mr. Dickens's 
greatest merits, that notwithstanding his excessive love of 
the humorous, lie never admits any pleasantries into a tragic 
scene, nor suffers a levity to run mischievously across the 
current of any deep emotion in a way to injure its just appre- 



48 CHARLES DICKENS. 

ciation. In this respect he is the direct converse of Tho- 
mas Ingoldsby, who not only mixes jests inextricably with 
horrors, but makes fun of the very horrors themselves — not 
ghost stories, nor burlesques, are here meant, but murder- 
ous deaths of men, women, and children. Rare subjects 
for fun ! 

A pure feeling of religion, and a noble spirit of Christian 
charity and active benevolence is apparent in all appropriate 
places throughout the works of Charles Dickens. After 
describing the poor girl born blind, deaf, and dumb, whom 
he saw in the Massachusetts Asylum, at Boston, and 
about whose course of life, education, and present state 
he excites so lively an interest, he concludes with a striking 
passage.* The same principles and feelings are also appa- 
rent in various incidental, and perhaps scarcely conscious 
side-hits and humorous touches which occur in the progress 
of the narrativesor dialogues ; as, for instance, where Sykes's 
dog is shown to entertain so very Christian-like an un- 
Christianity in his behaviour, and the sentiments he enter- 
tains with regard to other dogs. It is amusing to see how 
all this puzzles the Italian translator, who says the passage 
must have a hidden meaning — " un senso nascoso." 

As a general summary of the result of Mr. Dickens's 
works, it might be said that they contain a larger number 
of faithful pictures and records of the middle and lower 
classes of England of the present period, than can be found 
in any modern works; and that while they communicate 
very varied, and frequently very squalid and hideous know- 
ledge concerning the lower, and the most depraved classes, 
and without the least compromise of the true state of men 
and things, the author nevertheless manages so skilfully 
that they may be read from beginning to end without a 
single offence to true and unaffected delicacy. Moreover, 
they tend on the whole to bring the poor into the fairest 
position for obtaining the sympathy of the rich and power- 
ful, by displaying the goodness and fortitude often found 
amidst want and wretchedness, together with the intervals 
of joyousness and comic humour. As Hazlitt says of 
Hogarth, that " he doubles the quantity of our experience," 
so may it be said of Dickens, with the additional circum- 

* American Notes, vol. i. pp. 103, 104. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 49 

stance, t-hat all the knowledge of "life" which he com- 
municates is so tempered and leavened, that it will never 
assist a single reader to become a heartless misanthrope, 
nor a scheming " man of the world." 

At the commencement of this paper a comparison was 
instituted between Hogarth and Mr. Dickens. Dropping 
that comparison, the examination of the works of the latter 
has continued down to this point by dealing solely with the 
works themselves, as much so as if no others of the same or 
of similar class existed. In a philosophical and elementary 
sense comparisons are always inevitable to the formation of 
our judgments; not so, the bad system of always lugging in 
such extraneous and too often "odious" assistances. But 
we think we have fairly earned the right of doing somethino- 
of this kind in conclusion ; and perhaps it may be expected 
of us. 

Mr. Dickens has often been compared with Scott, with 
Fielding, and Le Sage. He is not at all like Scott, whose 
materials are derived from histories and traditions, as shown 
by his elaborate notes to every chapter — all worked up with 
consummate skill. Mr. Dickens has no notes derived from 
books or records, but from a most retentive memory and 
subtle associations ; and all this he works up by the aid of 
an inventive genius, and by genuine impulse rather than 
art. Scott and Fielding are great designers of plot and 
narrative. Dickens evidently works upon no plan ; he has 
a leading idea, but no design at all. He knows well what 
he is going to do in the main, but how he will do this, it is 
quite clear he leaves to the impulse of composition. He 
moves in no fixed course, but takes the round of nature as 
it comes. He imposes no restraints upon himself as to 
method or map ; his genius cannot bear the curb, but goes 
dancing along the high road, and bolts ad libitum. (It is 
not to be admired.) He is like Scott and Fielding in the 
fleshly solidity, costume, and completeness of his external 
portraitures. He is also like Fielding in some of his best 
internal portraitures. Scott does very little in that way. 
The Preface to the French translation of "Nicholas Nick- 
leby " says of it " Ce livre est un panorama mouvant de 
toutes les classes de la societe Anglaise ; un critique fine et 
piquante de tous les ridicules, une vaste composition a la 
maniere de ' Gil Bias,' ou mille personnages divers se 



50 CHARLES DICKENS. | 

meuvent et posent devaut le lecteur." This is quite true 
as to the method of working out their ideas ; but with this 
moving panorama of divers classes, and the excellent 
delineation of character, all resemblance ceases. The 
tendency of the great and too delightful work of Le Sage, 
is to give us a contempt for our species, and to show that 
dishonesty and cunning are the best policy. The power 
over the grotesque and the pathetic, displayed by Cervantes, 
added to his love of beauty in pastoral scenes, and to his 
deep-heartedness, offers a far closer and more worthy com- 
parison ; although we are aware that our author is not so 
poetical and elevated as Cervantes, nor would he have been 
likely to delineate such a character as Don Quixote — who 
comprises in himself the true flower and consummation of 
the chivalrous spirit, with its utter absurdity and end. But 
except in this one character, these two authors have a close ^ 
affinity in genius. Mr. Dickens is not like Gay. " The 
Beggar's Opera" was written to be sung; it is a poetical 
satire ; its heroes are idealized ; their vice and theft do not 
shock in the least ; and people nod their heads to the 
burthen of " Tyburn Tree," because it is only a song and 
satire which hangs upon it. The gallows of the " Beggar's 
Opera" was not meant for poor, base, thieves; it was a 
flight far above the rags of " beggars " — it was meant for 
" better company !" Not so with the thieves and fine gen- 
tlemen of Mr. Dickens. The men and things he deals with 
he means actually as he calls them ; the only exception to 
their reality is that they represent classes ; the best of them 
are never mechanical matter-of-fact portraits. It is this 
closeness to reality, so that what he describes has the same 
effect upon the internal sense as thinking ofrealitij, that 
renders Dickens very like De Foe ; not omitting the power 
over the pathetic and grotesque also possessed by both. Yet 
with all these resemblances, Mr. Dickens is an original in- 
ventor, and has various peculiarities, the entire effect of 
which renders his works, as wholes, unlike those of any 
other writer. 

Mr. Dickens is manifestly the product of his age. He 
is a genuine emanation from its aggregate and entire spirit. 
He is not an imitator of any one. He mixes extensively in 
society, and continually. Few public meetings in a benevo- 
lent cause are without him. He speaks effectively — 



CHARLES DICKENS. 51 

humorously, at first, and then seriously to the point. His 
reputation, and all the works we have discussed, are the 
extraordinary product of only eight years. Popularity and 
success, which injure so many men in head and heart, have 
improved him in all respects. His influence upon his age 
is extensive — pleasurable, instructive, healthy, reformatory. 
If his " Christmas Carol " were printed in letters of gold, 
there would be no inscriptions which would give a more 
salutary hint to the gold of a country. As for posterity, let 
no living man pronounce upon it; but if an opinion may be 
otTered, it would be that the earlier works of Mr. Dickens — 
the "Sketches by Boz," and some others — will die natural 
deaths ; but that his best productions, such as " Nicholas 
Nickleby," the "Old Curiosity Shop," "Oliver Twist," 
and " Martin Chuzzlewit," will live as long as our litera- 
ture endures, and take rank with the works of Cervantes, of 
Hogarth, and De Foe. 

Mr. Dickens is, in private, very much what might be 
expected from his works, — by no means an invariable coin- 
cidence. He talks much or little according to his sympa- 
thies. His conversation is genial. He hates argument ; in 
fact, he is unable to argue — a common case with impulsive 
characters who see the whole truth, and feel it crowding 
and struggling at once for immediate utterance. He never 
talks for^etfect, but for the truth or for the fun of the thing. 
He tells a story admirably, and generally with humorous 
exaggerations. His sympathies are of the broadest, and his 
literary tastes appreciate all excellence. He is a great ad- 
mirer of the poetry of Tennyson. Mr. Dickens has singular 
personal activity, and is fond of games of practical skill. He 
is also a great walker, and very much given to dancing Sir 
Roger de Coverley. In private, the general impression of 
him is that of a first-rate practical intellect, with " no non- 
sense " about him. Seldom, if ever, has any man been 
more beloved by contemporary authors, and by the public 
of his time. His portrait in the present work is extremely 
like him. 

Translations are regularly made in Germany of all Mr. 
Dickens's works. They are quite as popular there as with 
us. The high reputation of the Germans for their faithful- 
ness and general excellence as translators, is well supported 
in some of these versions ; and in others that reputation is 



52 CHARLES DICKENS. 

perilled. Bad abbreviations, in which graphic or humorous 
descriptions are omitted, and the characteristics of dialogue 
unnecessarily avoided, are far from commendable. No one 
could expect that the Italian " Oliviero Twist," of Giam- 
batista Baseggio, published in Milan, would be, in all 
respects, far better than one of the most popular versions of 
that work in Leipzig. But such is the fact. Some of the 
French translations are very good, particularly the " Nicolas 
Nickleby " of E. dela Bedollierre, which is admirably done. 
Mr. Dickens also " lives " in Dutch, and some of his works 
are, we believe, translated into Russian. 



LORD ASHLEY 

AND 

DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. 



" And ye, my Lortles, with your alliaunce, 
And other faithful people that there be, 
Trust I to God, shall quench all this noisaunce, 
Aiid set this lande in high prosperitie." 

Chaucer. 

"To plunge into the infection of hospitals ; to survey the mansions of sorrow and 
pain ; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt j to re- 
member the forgotten, and to attend to the neglected." 

Burke. 

" Trace the forms 
Of atoms moving with incessant change 
Their elemental round ; behold the seeds 
Of being, and the energy of life 
Kindling the mass with ever-active flame ; 
Then to the secrets of the working mind 
Attentive turn." 

Aeensid£. 

Yet much remains 
To conquer still : peace hath her victories 
No less renown'd than war." 

Milton. 

The spirit of the philosophy of antiquity offers a strik- 
ing contrast to that of the present age in the tendency of the 
latter to diffuse itself among the people. In the whole 
range of scientific or demonstrable knowledge which has 
been grasped by human intelligence, we have now nothing 
appoaching to the old Esoteric and Exoteric doctrine. 
With results at least as brilliant as those which have distin- 
guished any former age, the instruments of induction and 
experiment continue to be used to extend the boundaries of 
knowledge ; but that which no former age has witnessed is 
the energy which is now put forth to make the doctrines of 



54 LORD ASHLEY AND 

science known and to teach the masses how to apply them to 
their advantage. The men at present in possession of the 
key of knowledge, value it chiefly as it enables them to un- 
lock treasures for universal diffusion, and estimate their own 
claim to distinction and honour by the measure in which they 
have enriched the world. This spirit is strongly exemplified 
in the writings of Dr. Southwood Smith, and the course of 
his public life. By nature and education he seems to have 
been formed rather for the retirement and contemplation of 
the study, than the active business of the world. The bent 
of his mind led him at an unusually early age to the investi- 
gation of the range of subjects that relate more or less di- 
rectly to intellectual and moral philosophy ; and, as not un- 
frequently happens, the efforts of those around him to give 
to his pursuits a widely different direction only increased 
his love for these studies. 

Having determined on the practice of medicine as a 
profession. Dr. Southwood Smith found in the sciences which 
now demanded his attention, and still more in the structure 
and functions of organized beings, studies congenial to his 
taste, and for which his previous intellectual pursuits and 
habits had prepared him. The contemplation of the won- 
derful processes which constitute life, the exquisite maecha- 
nism, as far as that mechanism can be traced by which they 
are performed, the surprising adjustments and harmonies by 
which in a creature like man such diverse and opposite ac- 
tions are brought into relation with each other and made to 
work in subserviency and co-operation, and the Divine ob- 
ject of all — the communication of sensation and intelligence 
as the inlets and instruments of happiness, afforded the 
highest satisfaction to his mind. But this beautiful world, 
into whose intimate workings his eye now searched, pre- 
sented itself to his view as a demonstration that the Creative 
Power is infinite in goodness, and seemed to afford, as if from 
the essential elements and profoundest depths of nature, a 
proofofHis love. Under these impressions, he wrote, inl814, 
during the intervals of his college studies, the " Divine Go- 
vernment," a work which at once brought him into notice 
and established his reputation as an original and eloquent 
writer. It has now gone through many editions, and has 
been widely circulated, and read with the deepest interest 
by persons of all classes and creeds ; there is nothing sec- 



Dll. SOUTHVVOOD SMITH. 55 

tarian in it ; dealing only with great and universal priciples, 
it comprehends humanity and in some respects indeed the 
wholle sensitive and organic creation. The style is 
singularly lucid ; its tone is earnest, rising frequently into 
strains of touching and pathetic eloquence; a heartfelt con- 
viction of the truth of every thought that is put into words 
breathes throughout the whole, and a buoyant and youthful 
spirit prevades it, imparting to it a charm which so rivets the 
attention of the reader as to render him in many instances un- 
able to put down the book till finished, as if he had been 
engaged in an exciting novel. Had the work been written 
at a maturer age, some of this charm must have vanished, 
and given place to a deeper consciousness of the woe and 
pain that mingle with the joys of the present state But as 
it is, it has been no unimportant instrument in the hands of 
those among whom it has chanced to fall, in keeping distinct- 
ly before the view the greater happiness, as an end, to the at- 
tainment of which, pain is so often the direct and only means. 
Many instances are on record of the solace it has commu- 
nicated to the mourner, and the hope it has inspired in the 
mind when on the brink of despair. While divines of the 
church have read and expressed their approbation of it, it 
has attracted the attention of some of the most distinguished 
poets of the day : Byron and Moore have recorded their ad- 
miration of it, and it appears to have been the constant 
companion of Crabbe, and to have soothed and brightened 
his last moments. 

After the completion of his medical terms. Dr. South- 
wood Smith spent several years in the practice of his pro- 
fession at a provincial town in the west of England, near 
his place of birth, and in the midst of a small but highly 
cultivated and aifectionate circle of friends, devoting himself 
with unabated ardour to his favourite studies. On his removal 
to London, he attached himself to one of the great metropo- 
litan hospitals, that he might enlarge his experience in his 
profession. He was soon appointed physician to the East- 
ern Dispensary, and in a few years afterwards, to the Lon- 
don Fever Hospital. Called upon by the latter appointment 
to treat on so large a scale one of the most formidable diseases 
which the physician has to encounter, he applied himself to 
its study with a zeal not to be abated by two attacks of the 
malady in his own person, so severe that his life on each oc- 



56 LORD ASHLEY AND 

casion was despaired of. The result of several years' labo- 
rious investigation is given in his " Treatise on Fever," 
which was at once pronounced to be "one of the most able 
of the philosophical works that have aided the advancement 
of the science of medicine during the last half century;" 
and its reputation has risen with time. It has had a wide 
circulation on the continent, over India and in America, in 
the medical schools of which it has become a text-book, 
while in this country high medical authority has pronounced 
it to be " the best work on fever that ever flowed from the pen 
of physician in any age or country." 

Dr. Southwood Smith assisted in the formation of the 
Westminster Review, and wrote the article on "Education" 
in the first number. For many years he was a regular con- 
tributor, and it was here that his paper on the state of the 
Anatomical Schools first appeared, which attracted so much 
attention that it was reprinted in form of a pamphlet, under 
the title of " The Use of the Dead to the Living." In this 
form it passed through several editions, and a copy was sent 
to every member of both houses of Parliament. The evils 
that must necessarily result to the country by withholding 
from the medical profession the means of obtaining anato- 
mical and physiological knowledge were so clearly pointed 
out in this pamphlet, and the perils inseparable from the 
permission of such a class as the resurrection-men (the 
most horrible results of which were soon afterwards actually 
realized) so forcibly depicted, while at the same time a re- 
medy adequate to meet the difficulties of the case was sug- 
gested and explained, that the Legislature was induced to 
take up the subject, and after appointing a Committee of 
Inquiry, to pass the existing law, which has put an effectual 
stop fo the trade of body-snatching and the horrible crime of 
Burking : but, unfortunately, from a defect in the act, the 
anatomical schools are often placed, though quite unneces- 
sarily, in a state of considerable embarrassment. 

Dr. Smith laboured with equal earnestness, but less suc- 
cess, to obtain a revision of the present regulations concern- 
ing Quarantine, which he regards as unworthy of a country 
that has made any progress in science, having their origin 
in ignorance and superstition worthy of the middle ages ; 
aiming at an object which is altogether chimerical, and 
which, if it had any real existence, would be just as much 



DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. 57 

beyond human power as the control of the force and direc- 
tion of the winds. Yet these regulations are still allowed 
grievously to embarrass commerce, at the cost of hundreds 
of thousands of pounds annually. 

The articles on " Physiology and Medicine" in the ear- 
ly numbers of the Penny CyclopiEdia are from the pen of 
this author, and the success of the treatise on " Animal 
Physiology," written at the request of the Society for the 
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, suggested the idea of treat- 
ing this subject in a still more elaborate and comprehensive 
manner, and led to the publication of the " Philosophy of 
Health." The first words of the introduction to this work 
thus express the comprehensive nature of the subject which 
it embraces : — 

" The object of the present work is to give a l)rief and plain account of the struc- 
ture and functions of the Body, chiefly with reference to health and disease. This is 
intended to be introductory to an account of the constitution of the Mind, chiefly with 
reference to tlie development and direction of its powers." 

The two volumes already published, aim at establishing 
a series of general rules for health, (the word "health" 
being applied in its widest sense,) by popularly explaining 
the nature of the subs^tanccs of which the physical part of 
man is compounded ; describing the various structures and 
organs of the body, and the different functions they perform ; 
and deducing thence the laws which the creature is enjoined 
by the principles of its creation to obey. This is merely 
the basis of a higher philosophy, which rising from the phy- 
sical, shall, in regular sequence, proceed to the mental, 
trace their mutual relation and dependence, and endeavour to 
deduce from the exposition of the nature of each — as far as 
their nature can be comprehended by moral intelligence — 
the rules for the utmost development and progression of 
both. 

The first volume comprises a most interesting view of 
life in all organized bodies, commencing from an impercep- 
tible germ, and ascending from the lichen on the rock, to 
man himself The distinction between the two great divi- 
sions of organized life, between that which only grows — the 
organic, and that which not only grows, but moves and feels 
— the animal superadded to the organic — is traced with the 
hand of a master. Equally masterly is the rapid view of 
the means adopted to render voluntary motion possible ; the 

4 



58 LORD ASHLEY AND 

complication of structure requisite to that one faculty ; the 
apparatus constructed to produce sensation ; the elevation 
of every faculty down to the lowest, by the addition of each 
higher feculty ; the indispensable necessity and uses of pain 
not only to health, but to life itself; and the indication of 
the processes by which nature trains the mind to perceive 
and think. The concluding passage of this portion of the 
work is one of remarkable power, in which a general view 
is exhibited of the physiological progress of a human being, 
from its first appearance in the embryo state, until the final 
extinction of life, and the subjection of the inanimate body 
to the material laws which are to decompose it. Expositions 
of the functions of circulation, digestion, and nutrition fol- 
low, equally characterized by fulness, clearness, and con- 
ciseness. 

The style of this work is distinguished by terseness and 
simplicity; it would be difl^cult to find a useless word, and 
very few epithets are employed, as though the number and 
variety of ideas to be imparted rendered condensation essen- 
tial : in the arrangement there is great precision, subject 
after subject arising gradually and naturally. Few techni- 
cal terms are employed, and a full explanation is given to 
those which are introduced. A perfect command of the 
subject is evinced throughout ; and its exposition is at once 
profound and simple, calculated alike to instruct the igno- 
rant, and by the striking nature of the descriptions and the 
novelty of their applications, to interest even those to whom 
the facts are not new. Much of the matter contained in 
these volumes is original, and even that which is taken out 
of the common treasury of science is" disposed in a new 
manner, and exhibited in new relations of great interest and 
importance. Scattered phenomena which might be culled 
out of various works on Anatomy, Physiology, and Mental 
Philosophy, are here brought together and systematized ; 
displayed as a series, traced from their germs, and followed 
onwards to their highest manifestations ; arranged so as to 
show their relation to one another, and their influence one 
on the other, thence reducing the means of developing the 
united powers towards their utmost point of progression. 

Many felicitous instances of scientific generalization and 
of eloquent description and appeal might be referred to in 
exemplification. It has been well said by a philosophical 



DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. 59 

reviewer, that the " Natural History of Death, as a compo- 
sition, has much of that singuhir and melancholy beauty 
wherewith a painter of genius would invest the personifica- 
tion of mortality." The following appeal to mothers has 
been compared to the fervid eloquence of Rousseau, which 
aroused women to a sense of the physical obligations of the 
maternal character : but here the earnest call is for mental 
and moral exertion : — 

" I appeal to every woman whose eye may rest on these pages. 1 ask of you, 
what has ever been done for you to enable you to understand the physical and mental 
constitution of that human nature, the care of which is imposed on you.' In what 
part of the course of your education was instruction of this kind introduced.' Over 
how large a portion of your education did it e-xtend ? Who were your teachers ? 
What have you protited by their lessons .' What progress have you made in the ac- 
quisition of the requisite information .' Were you at this moment to undertake the 
guidance of a new-born infant to health, knowledge, goodness, and happiness, how 
would you set about the task .' How would you regulate the influence of external 
agents upon its delicate, tender, and highly irritable organs, in such a manner as to 
obtain from them healthful stimulation, and avoid destructive excitement ? What 
natural and moral objects would you select as the best adapted to exercise and de- 
velope its opening faculties? What feelings would you check, and what cherish.' 
How would you excite aims ; how would you apply motives .' How would you avail 
yourself of pleasure as a final end, or as the means to some further end .' And how 
would you deal with the no less formidable instrument of pain? What is your own 
physical, intellectual, and moral state, as especially fitting you for this ofhce ? What 
is the measure of your own self-control, without a large portion of which no human 
being ever yet exerted over the infant mind any considerable influence for good ?" 

This earnest passage at once serves to give an idea of 
the style of the work, and to explain one of its chief aims ; 
and with it the present short account of the " Philosophy of 
Health " must conclude, but not before a hope has been 
expressed that an undertaking so important and so well 
begun, will not much longer be left unfinished. 

Dr. Southwood Smith was the friend and physician of 
Bentham. The venerable and unaffected philanthropist, 
fully appreciating the importance of anatomical science, and 
lamenting the prejudice against dissection, gave his own 
body to Dr. Smith, charging him to devote it to the ordi- 
nary purposes of science. His friend fulfilled the desire, 
and delivered the first lecture over the body — with a clear 
and unfaltering voice, but with a face as white as that of the 
dead philosopher before him. Alive, so cheerful and serene 
— serene for ever now, and nothing more. The lecture 
was delivered on the 9th of June, 1832, in the Webb-street 
School of Anatomy. Dr. Smith availed himself of the 
occasion to give a view of the fundamental principles of 
Bentham's philosophy, and an account of his last moments. 
Most of the particular friends and disciples of the deceased 



()0 LORD ASHLEY AND 

were present on the occasion, and his biographer has made 
this lecture the concluding part of the Memoir which has 
been prefixed to the uniform Edition of Bentham's works just 
published. The head and face were preserved by a pecu- 
liar process, but the latter being found painful in expression, 
is covered with a wax mask admirably executed and a cor- 
rect likeness.. The skeleton also was preserved ; and the 
whole clothed in the ordinary dress worn by the philosopher, 
(according to his own express desire,) presenting him as 
nearly as possible as he was while living. Seated smiling in a 
large mahogany case with a glass front, the homely figure, 
with its long snow-white hair, broad-brimmed hat, and thick 
ash-plant walking-stick, resides with Dr. Southwood Smith, 
and may be seen by any one who takes an interest in the 
writings and character of Jeremy Bentham. 

Lord Ashley, the eldest son of the Earl of Shaftsbury, 
and member for Dorsetshire, commenced his career in that 
cause with which his public life has become identified, by 
undertaking the charge of Mr. Sadler's Factory Bill in the 
House of Commons. The invention of the spinning-jenny 
and the power-loom not only altered the whole process of 
manufacture, but withdrew the operatives from their own 
dwellings, and collected them in numbers in great buildings 
called Factories. The invention of machinery was attended 
with another result ; it created a demand for the compar- 
atively inexpensive labour of children, their small fingers 
being found best adapted to work in combination with it. 
Very young children, of both sexes, were therefore employed 
in great numbers, together with adult labourers, and as their 
servants, and were moreover compelled to work the same 
number of hours, whether those amounted to twelve, four- 
teen, or sixteen, or even all night. It was alleged that 
children of tender ages placed under these unnatural cir- 
cumstances were grievously and irreparably injured in their 
physical constitution ; that they were cruelly treated by 
their task-masters ; that their morals were early corrupted; 
that they were growing up in a state of absolute ignorance. 
It was universally admitted that the eftbrts which the Legis- 
lature had hitherto made for their protection had failed, and 
every existing enactment become a dead letter. It was in 
this state of things that Lord Ashley, in 1833, took charge 
of Mr. Sadler's Bill, the object of which was to limit the 



DR. SOUTIIVVOOD SMITH. 61 

hours of work, of all under eighteen, in Factories, to ten 
hours daily. This was met by the objection that such a 
measure must necessarily put the same limit on the labor 
of adults. A Commission was accordingly appointed ; first 
to ascertain the facts of the case as regarded the children, 
and, secondly, to inquire whether it would not be practicable 
to devise a measure for the protection of children without 
interfering with the liberty of all the operatives. Fifteen 
Commissioners were appointed and divided into five sec- 
tions, each consisting of three Commissioners, (two civil 
and one medical,) and of these Mr. Thomas Tooke, Mr. 
Chadwick, and Dr. Southwood Smith, formed the Central 
Board, to direct the inquiry and report the result. Their 
report was : — 

"That the children employed in all the principal branches of manufacture throughout 
the kingdom work tlie same number of hours as the adults ; that the effects of such 
labour, in great numbers of instances, are permanent deterioration of the physical 
constitution, the production of disease, often wliolly irremediable, and the exclusion 
by means of excessive fatigue from the means of obtaining education. That chil- 
dren at the ages when tliey suffer these injuries not being free agents, but let out to 
hire, their wages being appropriated by their parents, therefore a case is made out for 
the interference of the legislature in their behalf." 

The Factory Act of 1833 was founded on this Report, 
and four Inspectors and a considerable number of Sub-In- 
spectors were appointed to enforce obedience to its enact- 
ments. The results are highly important. 

The existing Act which fixes the youngest age at which 
children can be employed, and the extent of their hours of 
labour, and which requires education as a condition of em- 
ployment, is (unlike its predecessors) obeyed ; and although 
the clause in the Bill prepared by the Commissioners pro- 
viding for the erection of schools and the payment of teach- 
ers, was struck out in the House of Lords on the motion of 
the Earl of Shaftsbury, Lord Ashley's father, yet with all 
its imperfections the present Act has led to an amelioration 
in the treatment, and an improvement in the physical con- 
dition and moral character of this vast juvenile population, 
such as was never before effected by an Act of Parliament ; 
while the benefits resulting from it to ^11 parties, the employ- 
ers no less than the employed, are not only rapidly multi- 
plying and extending, but are becoming more and more the 
subjects of general acknowledgment and gratulation. There 
is reason to believe that the total number employed in fac- 



62 LORD ASHLEY AND 

tory labour in the United Kingdom is little short of 
1,000,000.* 

New fields of labour had opened to Lord Ashley at every 
step of his progress. He had already earned the honourable 
designation of the general guardian of the children of the 
poor, as the Lord Chancellor is of the children of the rich. 
He was satisfied that there were oppressions and sufferings 
of an aggravated character, and on a large scale, in occupa- 
tions widely different from those of the factory, and which 
required investigation the more because the places of work, 
in which some of the most important of these employments 
are carried on, are wholly inaccessible to the public. The 
apprehension inseparable from a mind, at once earnest and 
diffident, that he should fail to elicit the truth, and to place 
it so strongly before the public and the legislature, as to 
command attention and to ensure a remedy for any proved 
grievance, was strongly marked in the opening of his speech 
on the 4th of August, 1840, for the appointment of a " Com- 
mission of Inquiry into the employment of Children in 
Mines, Collieries, and other occupations not regulated by 
the Factory Acts." 

" It is, Sir," said he, " with feelings somewhat akin to despair, that I now rise 
to bring before the House, the motion of which I have given notice. I cannot but 
entertain misgivings, that I shall not be able to bring under the attention of the House 
this subject, which has now occupied so large a portion of my public life, and in 
which are concentrated in one hour, the labours of years. I have long contemplated 
this effort which I am now making ; I had long resolved that, so soon as I could see 
the Factory children, as it were, sife in harbour, I would undertake a new task. . 
. . . I am now endeavouring to obtain an inquiry into the actual circumstances 
and condition of another large part of our juvenile population. . . I wish," con- 
tinued ho, " to reserve and cherish the physical energies of these poor children, 
and to cultivate and improve their moral part, both of which, be they taken separately 

or conjointly, are essential to the peace, security, and progress of the empire 

It is instructive to observe, how we compel, as it were, vice and misery with one 
hand, and endeavour to repress them with the other; but the whole course of our 
manuficturing system tends to these results : you engage children from their earliest 
and tenderest years in these long, painful, and destructive occupations ; when they 
have approached to manhood, they have outgrown their employments, and they are 
turned upon the world without moral, without professional education ; the business 
they have learned, avails them nothing ; to what can they turn their hands for a main- 
tenance?— the children, for instance, who have been taught to make pins, having 
reached fourteen or fifteen years of age, are unfit to make pins any longer; to procure 
an honest livelihood then becomes to them almost impossible ; the governors of pri- 



* From a return furnished by Mr. Saunders, one of the Factory Inspectors, it ap- 
pears that in his district alone, which is by no means the largest, the total number 
employed in Factory labour, is 100,5D9. Among these there are 45,958 young persons 
and children coming under the regulations of the Factory Act. It appears, further, 
that while there were l)efore the present Act, as far as the Inspector could learn, only 
two schools in his whole district, at which about 200 cliildren may have been edu- 
cated, the actual number at present attending schools is 9316. The Factory Act has 
diminished the number of young children and increased that of adults. 



DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. 63 

sous will tell you, the relieving-officers will tell you, that the vicious resort to plunder 
anil prostitution ; the rest sink down into a hopeless pauperism. I desire to remove 
these spectacles of suffering and oppression from the eyes of the poorer classes, or at 
least to ascertain if we can do so: tliese things perplex the peaceable, and exaspe- 
rate the discontented ; they have a tendency to render capital odious, for wealth is 
known to them only by its oppressions ; they judge of it by what they see immediately 
around them ; they know but little bej'ond their own narrow sphere ; they do not 
extend their view over the whole surface of the land, and so perceive and understand 
the compensating advantages that wealth and property bestow on the community at 
large. Sir, witli so much ignorance on one side, and so much oppression on the other, 
I have never wondered that perilous errors and bitter hatreds have prevailed ; but I 
have wondered much, and been very thankful that they have prevailed so little." 

Lord Ashley concluded by declaring that it was his 
object to appeal to, and excite public opinion, " for where 
we cannot legislate," said he, "we may exhort; and laws 
may fail where example will succeed." 

" I must appeal to the Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England, nay, more, 
to the Ministers of every denomination, to urge on the hearts of their hearers, the 
miscliief and the danger of these covetous and cruel practices ; I trust they will not 
fall short of the zeal and eloquence of a distinguished prelate in a neighbouring coun- 
try, wlio, in these beautiful and emphatic words, exhorted his hearers to justice and 
mercy: — 'Open your eyes,' said the Prince Archbishop Primate of Normandy, ' and 
behold ; parents and masters demand of these young plants to produce fruit in the sea- 
son of blossoms. By excessive and prolonged labour they exhaust the rising sap, 
caring but little that they leave them to vegetate and perish on a withered and totter- 
ing stem. Poor little children! may the laws hasten to extend their protection over 
your existence, and viay posterity read with astonishment, on the front of this age, so 
satisfied with itself, that in these days of progress and discovery there was needed an iron 
law to forbid the murder of children by excessive labour.' . . . My grand object is to 
bring these children within reach of education. I will say, though possibly I may be" 
charged with cant and hypocrisy, that I have been bold enough to undertake this task, 
because I must regard tlie objects of it as beings created, as ourselves, by the same 
Maker, redeemed by the same Saviour, and destined to the same immortality ; and it 
is, therefore, in this spirit, and with these sentiments, that I now venture to entreat 
the countenance of this House, and the co-operation of Her Majesty's Ministers ; tirst 
to investigate, and ultimately to remove, these sad evils, which press so deeply and 
so extensively on such a largo and interesting portion of the human race." 

This appeal, distinguished throughout by an earnest 
simplicity of language, was answered by the cordial support 
of the Government, and the immediate appointment of a 
Commission of Inquiry, consisting of a Board of Commis- 
sioners, whose office it was to visit the districts and to report 
thereon. The field of inquiry prescribed by the terms of the 
Commission, comprehended the mines and collieries of the 
United Kingdom, and all trades and manufactures whatever 
in which children work together in numbers, not included 
under the Factories Regulation Act. The mass of evidence 
sent up to the Central Board from twenty gentlemen, work- 
ing day and night, in different parts of the country, with the 
utmost energy and without intermission for many consecutive 
months, speaks for itself Fortunately the Commissioners 
were men of energy practised in business. The chairman, 



64 LORD ASHLEY AND 

Mr. Thomas Tooke, who had held the same situation in the 
Factory Commission, possessed the confidence of the com- 
mercial and manufacturing portion of the country. Mr. 
Horner and Mr. Saunders, two of the Factory Inspectors, 
had already spent many years in pursuing investigations an- 
alogous to those which were now to be made ; and Dr South- 
wood Smith was qualified as a physiologist and physician, to 
appreciate the influence of early labour on the physical and 
moral condition of children. But the very extent and com- 
pleteness of the evidence transmitted to the Central Board, 
would have caused its failure as an instrument of legislation, 
but for the manner in which it was decided to deal with it. 
The subject was divided into two parts, Mines and Manufac- 
tures. The mines were subdivided into collieries and me- 
tallic mines, and the manufactures into the larger branches 
of industry, such as metal-wares, earthenware, glass-making, 
lace-making, hosiery, calico-printing, paper-making, weav- 
ing, &c. 

Those who have closely examined the two small volumes, 
into which compass are compressed and admirably arranged 
the main facts contained in the enormous folios, can alone 
appreciate the amount of labour involved in this undertaking, 
and will not fail to recognize in the lucid order and con- 
densed style, the hand of Dr. Southwood Smith, on whom this 
portion of the labours of the commission principally devolved. 
He did not shrink from the task, though nearly every minute 
of the day was absorbed by a fatiguing profession, sustained 
through the long hours taken from rest and sleep, by the 
conviction that the usefulness of this work would afford a 
heart-felt compensation for its labour. The anticipation 
was fully realized. When the Report on Mines was laid on 
the table of the House, astonishment and horror were uni- 
versal. No such outrages on humanity had been discovered 
since the disclosure of the treatment of Negro slaves. It 
was truly said that this report resembled a volume of travels 
in a remote and barbarous country, so little had been previ- 
ously known of the state of things it described. Dark pas- 
sages to seams of coal, scarcely thirty inches in height, not 
larger than a good-sized drain, through which children of 
both sexes, and of all ages, from seven years old and upwards, 
toiled for twelve hours daily, and sometimes more, obliged to 
crawl on " all fours," dragging after them loaded corves or 



DR. SOUTIIWOOD SMITH. 65 

carts, fastened to their bodies by a belt, a chain passing be- 
tween tlie legs ; — infants of four, five, and six years old, 
carried down on their parents' knees to keep the air-doors, 
sitting in a little niche scooped out in the coal, for twelve 
hours daily, alone, in total darkness, except when the corves, 
lighted by their solitary candle, passed along, and some of 
them during the winter never seeing the light of day, except 
on Sunday ; — girls and women hewing coals like men, and 
by the side of men ; — girls and women clothed in nothing 
more than loose trowsers, and these often in rags, working 
side-by-side with men in a state of utter nudity ; — girls of 
tender years carrying on their backs along unraiied roads, 
often over their ankles, and sometimes up to their knees in 
water, burdens of coal, weighing from 3-4 cwt. to 3 cwt., 
from the bottom of the mine to the bank, up steep ladders, 
" the height ascended and the distance along the roads 
added together, exceeding the height of St. Paul's Cathedral;" 
married women, and women about to become mothers, drag- 
ging or bearing on their shoulders similar enormous loads, 
up to the very moment when forced to leave this " horse- 
work" to be " drawn up," to give birth to their helpless 
offspring, — themselves as helpless — at the pit's mouth, and 
sometimes even in the pit itself ; — boys, of seven and eight 
years old, bound till the age of twenty-one apprentices to the 
colliers, receiving until that age, as the reward for their la- 
bour, nothing but food, clothing and lodging, working side- 
by-side with young men of their own age, free labourers, the 
latter receiving men's wages ; — boys employed at the steam- 
engines for letting down and drawing up the work-people ; 
— ropes employed for this service obviously and acknow- 
ledgedly unsafe ; — accidents of a fearful nature constantly 
occurring; — the most ordinary precautions to guard against 
danger neglected ; a collier's chances of immunity from 
mortal peril being about equal to those of a soldier on the 
field of battle — for all this neither the legislature nor the 
public were at all prepared, nor were they better prepared 
for the two last conclusions deduced by the Commissioners, 
as the result of the whole body of evidence, namely : — 

" That partly by tho eeverity of the labour and the long hours of work, and 
partly through the unhealthy state of the place of work, this employment, as at 
present carried on in all the districts, deteriorates the physical constitution ; in the 
thm-seam mines, more especially, the limbs become crippled and the body distorted j 
and in general the muscu hir powers give way, and the work-people are incapable of 



66 



LORD ASHLEY AND 



following their occupation, at an earlier period of life than is common in other 
branches of industry. — That by the same causes, the seeds of painful and mortal dis- 
eases are often sown in childhood and youth ; these, slowly but steadily developing 
themselves, assume a formidable character between the ages of thirty and forty ; and 
each generation of this class of the population is commonly extinct soon after fifty." 

When on the 7th of June, 1842, Lord Ashley moved for 
leave to bring in a Bill, founded on this report, there was an 
unusually large attendance of members. After expressing 
his warm acknowledgments to the late administration, " not 
only for the Commission which they gave, but for the Com- 
missioners whom they appointed, gentlemen who had per- 
formed the duties assigned them with unrivalled skill, fidelity 
and zeal," he proceeded in an elaborate speech, listened to 
throughout by a silent and deeply attentive House, to detail 
the most important points of the evidence, presenting such 
an appalling picture of the physical miseries and the moral 
deterioration of large classes of the community, that the 
motion was granted without a dissentient voice. Members 
on every side vied with each other in cordial assent and 
sympathy with the measure. The contemporary press 
echoed the tone ; the manner of the speech was deservedly 
eulogized for its freedom from all sickly sentimentalities, 
useless recriminations, and philanthropic clap-traps; for the 
way in which the startling and impressive facts of the case 
were simply stated and lucidly arranged, and in which each 
was made to bear upon the nature and necessity of the pro- 
jected remedy, while blessings were invoked in the name of 
humanity, on the man by whom this was done, and done so 
well. " The laurels of party," it was truly declared, " were 
worthless, compared with the wreath due to this generous 
enterprise." 

Lord Ashley's Bill proposed a total exclusion of girls and 
women from the labour of mines and collieries; a total pro- 
hibition of male children from this labour, no boy being 
allowed to descend into a mine, for the purpose of performing 
any kind of work therein, under thirteen years of age; a 
total prohibition of apprenticeship to this labour, and a pro- 
vision that no person, other than a man between twenty-one 
and fifty years of age, shall have charge of the machinery by 
which the work-people are let down and drawn up the shafts. 

The history of the mutilated progress of this Bill through 
both Houses, has now to be recorded. 

The first point was unanimously acceded to in the Com- 



DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. 67 

mons; the second was altered by the substitution of the age 
of ten, for that of thirteen ; the concession, however, being 
neutralized as far as was practicable, by the provision, that 
no boy under thirteen should work on any two successive 
days ; the third was materially altered by the addition of the 
word " underground," thus allowing the collier to take ap- 
prentices provided he worked them on the surface ; the fourth 
was altered by omitting the limitation to fifty, thus permit- 
ting the lives of all who work in mines, to be placed in the 
hands of aged and decrepit men. 

Thus changed, each change, it will be observed, being 
directly against the interest and safety of the work-people, 
the Bill passed the Commons. In the House of Lords, the 
whole measure was met with a spirit of hostility as unex- 
pected as it was unanimous, and alas ! successful. It had 
been forgotten that the mines and collieries of the kingdom 
belong, with very few exceptions, to the great landed propri- 
etors — the same noble lords who had now to decide on the 
fate of the Bill. For some time it was impossible to get any 
member of that noble House to take any charge of the busi- 
ness. At length, Lord Devon, from a feeling of shame to 
which so many had showed themselves insensible, volunteer- 
ed to do what he could to conduct the Bill through its peril- 
ous course. In this noble House, even the prohibition to 
work female children, and married women, and women 
about to become mothers, was murmured at, but no member 
ventured to propose an alteration of this part of the measure. 
The clause prohibiting apprenticeship was expunged, saving 
that a provision was retained that no apprenticeship should 
be contracted under ten years of age, nor for a longer period 
than eight years. The clause limiting the labour of boys 
under thirteen to alternate days, was expunged. And the 
clause regulating the age of the persons that work the ma- 
chinery for conveying the work-people up and down the 
shafts, which the Commons had altered on the one hand so 
as to permit decrepit men to perform this office, the Lords 
now altered on the other, so as to intrust it to boys. 

Early in the following Session, the Commissioners pre- 
sented their second Report on Trades and Manufactures, 
drawn up on the same elaborate plan, written with the same 
clearness and calmness, and exhibiting in some respects a 
still more melancholy, though not so startling a picture of 



68 LORD ASHLEY AND 

the condition of large classes of our industrial population. — 
It discloses in its full extent the mischief done to the former 
Bill by the expulsion of the clause prohibiting apprenticeship; 
for it proves that the oppressions and cruelties perpetrated 
under this legal sanction in mines and collieries, is even ex- 
ceeded in some trades and manufactuies. The words of the 
Report relative to this subject, ought to sink deep into the 
mind and heart of the country. After stating that in some 
trades, more especially those requiring skilled workmen, ap- 
prentices are bound by legal indentures usually at the age of 
fourteen, and for a term of seven years, the Commissioners 
continue : — 

" But by far the greater number are bound without any prescribed legal forms, and 
in almost all these cases they are required to serve their masters, at whatever age they 
may corimicnce their apprenticeship, until they attain the age of twcnty-ove, in some in- 
stances in employments in which there is nothing deserving the iiawe of skill to be ac- 
quired, and in otlier instances in employments in which they are taught to make only 
one particular part of the article manvfactvrcd ; so that, at tlic end of their servitude they 
are altogether unable to make anyone article of their tradein a complete state. A large pro- 
portion of tliese apprentices consist of orphans, or are the children of widows, or belong 
to the poorest families, and frequently are apprenticed by Boards of Guardians. The 
term of servitude of these apprentices may and sometimes does commence as early as 
seven years of age, and is often jiassed under circumstances of great hardship and ill- 
usage, and under the condition tliat, during the greater part, if not the whole, of their 
term, they receive nothing for their labour beyond food and clothing. This system of 
apprenticeship is most prevalent in the districts around Wolverhampton, and is most 
abused by what are called " small masters," persons who are either themselves jour- 
neymen, or who, if working on their own account, work with their apprentices. In 
these districts it is 1 he practice among some of the employers to engage the services of 
children by a simple written agreement, on the breach of which the defaulter is liable 
to be committed to jail, and in fact often is so without regard to age." 

The Report on Wolverhampton states, that " within the 
last four years five hundred and eighty-four males and 
females, all under age, have been committed to Stafford jail 
for breach of contract." The following passage concerning 
the treatment of the children, completes the picture : — 

" In the cases in which the children are the servants of the workmen, and under 
their sole control, the master apparently knowing nothing about their trci:tment, and 
certainly taking no charge of it, they are almost always roughly, very often harshly, 
and sometimes cruelly used; and in the districts around Wolverhamiiton in particu- 
lar, the treatment of them is oppressive and brutal to the last degree." 

Wolverhampton, it will be remembered, is the centre of 
the iron manufactures in South Staffordshire, and the words 
of this Report in their simple conciseness, lay bare a state of 
things which, that it should exist at this day, just as if no 
Commission had been established, and no f\icts made known 
to the public, in the centre of a country which calls itself 
civilized, is an outrage to humanity. The descriptions of 



DR. SOUTIIWOOD SMITH. 



69 



this district exhibit scenes of actual misery among the chil- 
dren, far surpassing the inventions of fiction. Here, in the 
busy workshops, the Assistant-Commissioner saw the poor 
apprentice boys at their daily labour ; their anxious faces, 
looking three times their age, on deformed and stunted 
bodies, showing no trace of the beauty and gladness of child- 
hood or youth ; their thin hands and long fingers toiling at 
the vice for twelve, fourteen, sixteen, sometimes more hours 
out of the twenty-four ; yet with all their toil, clothed in 
rags, shivering with cold, half-starved, or fed on offal, beat- 
en, kicked, abused, struck with locks, bars, hammers, or 
other heavy tools, burnt with showers of sparks from red-hot 
irons, pulled by the hair and ears till the blood ran down, 
and in vain imploring for mercy ; — and all this is going on 
now* 

Why should it go on ? Apprenticeship is not an order of 
Nature. It is an arrangement, good in itself, made by the 
law, and the law should therefore regulate it beneficently. 
The necessity of interfering between parents and children 
has been admitted, and in some degree acted upon in the fac- 
tories, mines, and collieries. It is equally necessary in trades 
and manufactures ; and much more is it necessary to inter- 
fere between masters and apprentices, The natural instinct 
has even still some power. The mothers do carry their 
over-toiled children to their beds when they are too tired to 
crawl to them, — but no one cares for the wretched appren- 
tice. He may lie down and die when his "long day's 
work" is done, and his master can get another, and a sove- 
reign, besides, at the workhouse. 

It is difticult to make an abridgment of the concise and 
graphic descriptions given in these Reports of the physical 
and moral condition of the persons employed in the various 
branches of industry included in the Inquiry ; and it is the 
less necessary, because the means of information are placed 
within the reach of all; an octavo volume t having been 
published by direction of the Government, at the desire of 
the House of Commons, containing verbatim the most im- 

* Reports on Wolverhampton, and other districts, on the Employment of Children 
and Young Persons in the Iron Trades, &c., of South Staftbrdsliire,and the neighbour- 
ing jKirts of Worcestershire and Shropshire. 

f Physical and Moral Condition of the Children and Young Persons employed 
in Mines and Manufactures. Illustrated by extracts from the Reports of the Commis- 
sioners." — London: Published for Her Majesty's Stationery Otflce, by J. W. Parker, 
West Strand. 1843. 



70 LORD ASHLEY AND 

portant portions of the Reports. The individuals compos- 
ing these classes are to be numbered not by thousands but 
by millions; yet what is the weighed, the solemn verdict 
given by this Commission as to their moral condition ? 
Every word has been deeply considered — and should so be 
read. The Commissioners say, in their general conclu- 
sion : — 

" That the parents, urged by poverty or improvidence, generally seek employment 
for the children as soon as they can earn the lowest amount of wages ; paying but 
little regard to the probable injury of their children's health by early labour, and 
still less regard to the certain injury of their minds by early removal from school, or 
even by the total neglect of their education ; seldom, when questioned, expressing 
any desire for the regulation of the hours of work, with a view to the protection and 
welfare of their children, but constantly expressing the greatest apprehension lest 
any legislative restriction should deprive them of the profits of their children's 
labour ; the natural parental instinct to provide, during childhood, for the child's sub- 
sistence, being, in great numbers of instances, wholly extinguished, and the order of 
nature even reversed — the children supporting, instead of being supported by, their 
parents. 

" That the means of instruction are so grievously defective that in all the districts 
great numbers of children are growing up without any religious, moral, or intellectual 
training ; nothing being done to train them to habits of order, sobriety, honesty, and 
forethought, or even to restrain them from vice and crime. 

" That there is not a single district in which the means of instruction are ade- 
quate to the wants of the people, while in some it is insuflicient for the education of 
one-third of the population. That as a natural consequence of this neglect, and of 
the possession of unrestrained liberty at an early age, when few are capable of self- 
government, great numbers of these children and young persons acquire in childhood 
and youth habits which utterly destroy their future health, usefulness, and happi- 



The details forming the basis of these general statements, 
— which are cold abstractions, necessarily incapable of pre- 
senting the living action and passion of the countless indi- 
viduals from whom they are derived, — exhibit a degree of 
wide-spread ignorance, vice, and suffering, for the disclo- 
sure of which the country was wholly unprepared. For this 
national moral evil there is no remedy but a national educa- 
tion ; and the presentation of the Report was followed, on 
the part of Lord Ashley, by a motion for " A Moral and 
Religious Education of the Working Classes." He sus- 
tained his motion by a speech, in which, after expressing 
his heart-felt thanks to the Commissioners for " an exercise 
of talent and vigour never surpassed by any public servants," 
he gave a comprehensive, massive, and most impressive 
summary of the results of their labours. Few who were in 
the House on that night will ever forget the effect produced 
when, urging on his audience to consider the rapid progress 
of time, and the appalling rapidity with which a child of 
nine years of age, abandoned to himself, and to companions 



DR. SOUTHVVOOD SMITH. 71 

like himself, is added to the ranks of viciousness, misery, 
and disorder in manhood, he turned from the Speaker, and 
looking round on those of his own order, exclaimed — " You 
call these poor people improvident and immoral, and so they 
are; but that improvidence and immorality are the results 
of our neglect, and, in some measure, of our example. De- 
clare this night that you will enter on a novel and a better 
course — that you will seek their temporal through their 
eternal welfare — and the blessing of God will rest upon your 
endeavours; and perhaps the oldest among you may live to 
enjoy for himself and for his children the opening day of the 
immortal, because the moral glories of the British Empire." 

This appeal was met on the part of the Secretary of State 
for the Home Department, Sir James Graham, by the an- 
swer that he had matured a plan which might be regarded 
as the first effort of Government to introduce a national sys- 
tem of education. There were unquestionably elements of 
good in the education clauses, particularly as they were al- 
tered in the course of debate, and they might have formed 
the basis of institutions expanding and improving by experi- 
ence, until they were put in harmony with the feelings, and 
became adequate to the wants of the people ; but, unfortun- 
ately, whatever may have been the real intentions of the Min- 
ister, the announcement of his plan had the effect of excit- 
ing in a violent degree the sectarian animosities of the 
people; and after having arrayed from one end of the king- 
dom to another in desperate conflict Churchman against Dis- 
senter, and Dissenter against Churchman, and different sec- 
tions of each against all the rest, terminated, not only in the 
loss of any measure for Education, but in the defeat of the 
amendment of the Factory Act, to which the Minister had 
attached his scheme of National Education. Consequently, 
the evils resulting from ignorance remain as before. The 
Factory Act will, however, be amended. Government an- 
nounced, on the 6th of February, the intention of limiting 
the labour of children, under thirteen, to six hours daily. 

But although the opportunity of making a national provi- 
sion for education has for the present been lost, yet the ex- 
posure of the total inadequacy of existing Institutions for 
the intellectual and moral training of the people, has not 
been without a useful result. Within the space of a few 



72 



LORD ASHLEY AND 



months after the publication of the reports of the " Chil- 
dren's Employment Commission," and immediately after the 
failure of tlie Government plan of education, the friends of 
the established Church raised in voluntary contributions an 
educational fund amounting to nearly 200,000/. ; and one 
denomination of Dissenters (the Independents) at their first 
meeting, subscribed towards a similar fund upwards of 
17,000/., and pledged themselves to use their utmost ex- 
ertions to increase this sum to 100,000/. in the space of 
five years. The Methodists also have pledged themselves 
to raise 200,000/. in seven years, and found 700 schools ; 
nor is it probable that other bodies of Dissenters will remain 
inactive ; so that the people have already put to shame the 
" National Grant of 30,000/.," the utmost amount ever yet 
voted by Parliament for the education of the country — a 
sum scarcely sufficient to defray the expense of one convict 
ship, or to maintain for a year one single prison ! 

The two commissions on which Dr. Southwood Smith 
has been engaged, have unavoidably turned his mind away 
from the speculative studies which at one period occupied 
him more exclusively, and have converted him from a thinker 
into a worker. Circumstances connected with his profes- 
sion had long forced upon his observation the wretched 
state of the dwellings of the poor, and the disease, suffering, 
and death produced by the noxious exhalations that arise 
from the unsewered, undrained, and uncleansed localities 
into which their houses are crowded. " Nature," said he, 
" with her burning sun, her stilled and pent-up wind, her 
stagnant and teeming marsh, manufactures plague on a 
large and fearful scale : poverty in her hut, covered with 
her rags, surrounded with her filth, striving with all her 
might to keep out the pure air, and to increase the heat, 
imitates nature but too successfully ; the process and tjie 
product are the same, the only difference is in the magni- 
tude of the result." In the year 1837, this result was pro- 
duced in certain of the metropolitan districts to such an un- 
usual extent as to attract the attention of the Poor Law Com- 
niissioners. They requested Drs. Southwood Smith, Ar- 
nott, and Kay to investigate the cause. The districts as- 
signed to Dr. Smith were Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, 
and he adopted the plan of writing a literal description of 



DR. SOUTIIVVOUD SMITH. 73 

what he saw in his tour over these unknown regions. Of 
the many pictures of squalid wretchedness presented, the 
following may serve as specimens: — 

" An open area of about 700 feet in length, and 300 in breadtli ; 300 feet of wliich 
are covered liy stagnant water, winter and summer. In tlie part thus submerged, 
there is always a quantity of putrefying animal and vegetable matter, the odour of 
which at the present moment is most offensive. An open filthy ditch encircles this 

place. Into this ditch all the 

Nothing can be conceived more disgusting than the appearance ; and tlie odour of the 
clUuvia is at this moment most offensive. Lamb's-fiekls is the fruitful source of fever 
to the houses which immediately surround it, and to the small streets which branch off" 
from it. Particular houses were pointed out to me from which entire families have 
been swept away, and from several of the streets fever is never absent." 

Of St. John Street, a close and densely populated place, 
in which malignant fever has prevailed in almost every house, 
he says — 

" In one room which I examined, eight feet by ten and nine feet high, six people 
live by day and sleep at night ; the closeness and stencli are almost intolerable. . . 
Alfred and Beckwith Rows, consist of small buildings divided into two houses, one 
back, the other front : each house being divided into two tenements, occupied by dif- 
ferent families. These habitations are surrounded by a broad open drain, in a filthy 
condition. Heaps of filth are accumulated in the spaces meant for gardens in front 

of the houses I entered several of the tenements. In one of them, on 

the ground floor, I found six persons occupying a very small room, two in bod, ill with 
fever. In the room above this were two more persons in one bed, ill with fever. In 
this same room a woman was carrying on tlie process of silk-winding, . . Camp- 
den-gardens, the dwellings are small ground-floor houses ; each containing two 
rooms, the largest about seven feet by nine, the smallest barely large enough to ad- 
mit a small bed ; the height about seven feet ; in winter these houses are exceedingly 
damp ; the windows are very small ; there is no drainage of any kind ; it is close upon 
a marshy district. Often all the members of a family are attacked by fever, and die 
one after the other." 

These descriptions can only be compared to Howard's 
account of the " State of Prisons," fifty years ago. The 
jail fever was then a recognized and prevalent disease; it 
is now only a subject of history. So may the typhus fever 
in London be fifty years hence. It requires only an en- 
lightened legislature to order, and efficient officers to enforce 
known remedies. 

The impression produced by the entire Report, portions 
of which have now been extracted, led to the motion made 
by the Bishop of London, in the Session of 1839, for an ex- 
tension of the inquiry into the state of other towns in 
the United Kingdom. Early in the following Session 
(1840) Mr. Slaney obtained a Select Committee of the 
House of Commons for inquiring into the " Health of 
Towns." Dr. Southwood Smith was the first witness ex- 
amined before this Committee, who largely quote his " val- 
uable evidence " in their Report, and refer the legislature 



74 LORD ASHLEY AND 

to the important paper which he furnished to them, entitled 
" Abstract of a Report on the prevalence of Fever in Twen- 
ty Metropolitan Unions daring the year 1838," which they 
reprinted in their Appendix. 

The urgency of the case had now attracted the notice 
of Government, and in particular had impressed the noble 
Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Marquis 
of Normanby ; but like many others, being unable to dis- 
miss a doubt whether there were not some exaggerations in 
these descriptions, he resolved to verify their correctness by 
a personal inspection of the districts in question. He ac- 
cordingly accompanied Dr. Southwood Smith in a visit to 
Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, and was so deeply affected 
by what he savv, that he declared his instant conviction, 
that " so far from any exaggeration having crept into the de- 
scriptions which had been given, they had not conveyed to 
his mind an adequate idea of the truth ;" as indeed no words 
can do. Lord Ashley afterwards performed the same pain- 
ful round in company with Dr. Smith, and expressed him- 
self in a similar manner.* 

In the Session of 1841, Lord Normanby introduced 
into Parliament his Bill for the "Drainage of Buildings," 
and in his speech on moving the second reading of the Bill 
on the 12th of February, he acknowledged the services of 
Dr. Southwood Smith, in the following terms. " I cannot 
allude to them," he said, " without at once expressing my 
obligations to that indefatigably benevolent gentleman for 
much useful information which I have derived from him, 
with whom I have had the satisfaction of much personal 
communication on this subject." The principal provisions 
of this Bill regarded the drainage of houses, the regulation 
of the width of lanes and alleys, and the form and conveni- 
ences of dwellings. Tiie Bishop of London warmly sup- 
ported the measure : — " As presiding over the spiritual in- 
terests of the metropolis, he felt deeply interested in a Bill 
which he was satisfied would so materially affect them : and 
being thoroughly convinced that the physical condition of 
the poor was intimately connected with their moral and reli- 
gious state, and that the two exerted amutual injluence upon 

* These statements are strictly iiutljeiitic. They went privately, and unattended, 
into the most squalidand hideous ahodes of fillh,and misery, and vice, and might well 
express themselves strongly in puhlic after what they witnessed.— Ed. 



DR. SOUTinVOOD SMITH. 75 

earh other, he thankfully hailed the present measure as the 
first step towards an elevation of that class of the community 
in the scale of social comfort and order." Lord Ellenbo- 
rough followed in the same spirit : — " It is idle," said he, 
" to build churches, to erect school-houses, and to employ 
clergymen and schoolmasters, if we do no more. Our first 
-object should be to improve the physical condition of the 
poor labourer, — to place him in a position in which he can 
acquire self-respect: above all things to give him a home.'' 
But before this measure had passed, there was a dissolu- 
tion of Parliament, and a change in the administration. The 
present ministers, however, have not neglected a subject in 
which the former Government took so deep an interest ; but 
have appointed a Commission of Inquiry into the state of 
large towns and populous districts, with a view, chiefly, to 
report on remedies. In an extended examination before 
these Commissioners, Dr. Southwood Smith states that the 
disease formerly described by him, still continues, and with 
increasing virulence ; that a new epidemic is now ravaging 
the metropolis, far more extensive and fatal than the prece- 
ding; that the poorer classes in their neglected districts, 
are still exposed to causes of disease, suffering and death, 
which are peculiar to them, and the malignant influence of 
which is steady, unceasing, and sure. His words are too 
terrible to need any comment ; — 

" The result," he says, " is the same as if twenty or thirty thousanil of these 
people were annually taken out of their wretched dwellings and put to death, the 
actual fact being that they are allowed to remain in them and die. I am now spealt- 
ing of what silently, but surely, takes place every year in the metropolis alone, and 
do not include in this estimate the numbers that perish from these causes in the other 
great cities, and in the towns and villages of the kingdom. It has been stated that 
' the annual slaughter in England and Wales, from preventable causes, of typhus 
fever, which attacks persons in the vigour of life, is double the amount of what was 
suffered in the allied armies in the battle of Waterloo.' This is no exaggerated state- 
ment ; this great battle against our people is every year fought and won ; and yet few 
take account of it, partly for the very reason that it takes place every year. How- 
ever appalling the picture presented to the mind by this statement, it may be justly 
regarded as a literal expression of the truth. I am myself convinced from what I 
constantly see of the ravages of this disease, that this mode of putting the result does 
not give an exaggerated expression of it. Indeed the most appalling expression of it 
would be the mere cold statement of it in figures." 

In conclusion. Dr. Smith enforced in earnest language, 
the consideration that this whole class of evils is remediable : 
that it does not belong to that description of evil which is 
mingled with good in the conditions of our being, but to 
that much larger sum of suffering which is the consequence 
of our own ignorance and apathy ; — 



76 ' LORD ASHLEY AND 

" No Government," said he, " can prevent the existence of poverty ; no benevo- 
lence can reach the evils of extreme poverty under the circumstances which at pre- 
sent universally accompany it ; but there is ground of liope and encouragement in the 
thought that the most painful and debasing of those circumstances are adventitious, 
and form no necessary and inevitable part of the condition of that large class of every 
community which must earn their daily bread by their manual labour. These adventi- 
tious circumstances constitute the hardest part of the lot of the poor, and these, as I 
have just said, are capable of being prevented to a very large extent. The labours of 
a single individual, I mean tliose of the illustrious Howard, have at length succeeded 
in removing exactly similar evils, though somewhat more concentrated and intense, 
from our prisons ; they are at least equally capable of being removed from the dwell- 
ing-houses and work-places of the people. Here there is a field of beneficent labour 
which falls legitimately within the scope of the legislator, and which is equally within 
that of the philanthropist, aifording a common ground, beyond the arena of party 
strife, in the culture of which all parties may unite with the absolute certainty that 
they cannot thus labour without producing some good result, and that the good pro- 
duced, whatever may be its amount, must be unmixed good." 

Dr. Smith is now engaged with Lord Ashley and other 
influential and benevolent men, in the formation of an As- 
sociation for improving the dwellings of the industrious 
classes, by the erection of comfortable, cleanly, well-drained 
and ventilated houses, to be let to families in sets of rooms, 
with an ample supply of water on each floor ; a fair return 
for the captital invested being secured. Eleemosynary re- 
lief forms no part of the undertaking, as tending to destroy 
the independence of those whom it is destined to benefit. 
The association has fully matured its plans, and will en- 
deavour practically to show by model-houses what may be 
done by combination to lessen the expensiveness of the 
dwellings of the poor, and to increase their healthfulness 
and comforts. 

Though the sanatory condition of the working classes 
has been the especial object of Dr. Southwood Smith of late 
years, he has not forgotten the wants of the middle classes 
in the season of sickness. These are not at first sight so 
obvious ; but there are circumstances which have never 
been sufficiently considered, that place many, whose station 
in life removes them above the evils of poverty, in a worse 
condition when overtaken by disease than the poor who can 
obtain admission into the hospitals. Numbers of the middle 
classes annually leave their homes and families and flock to 
London, as to a common centre, to find employment or to 
complete their education. Others resort to it from distant 
parts of the country for medical or surgical advice. Stran- 
gers and foreigners constantly visit it. When attacked by 
disease, — a close and comfortless lodging in a noisy street, 
with no better attendance than the already over-tasked ser- 



DR. SOUTIIWOOD SMITH. 77 

vant of all work, or a landlady, who begins to dread infec- 
stion, or the non-payment of her rent, — is the lot of many a 
'delicately minded and sensitive person in the pain of fever or 
^inflammation, with all the desolation of the feeling of absence 
I from home and friends. 

Out of a sympathy with such sufferers, arose in Dr. 
Smith's mind the idea of founding an institution on the prin- 
ciples of the great clubs, arranged with every requisite for 
a place of abode in sickness, and provided with regular 
'medical officers and nurses; the principle of admission 
being, as in the case of the clubs, a certain yearly subscrip- 
tion, and a fixed weekly payment during residence in it. 
Such institutions are not uncommon on the continent, 
' though, until the present time, none have existed in this 
'country. That originated by Dr. Southwood Smith, under 
'the name of the "Sanatorium," was opened in March, 
1842, at Devonshire-place House, in the New Road. The 
' house is well calculated for an experimental attempt, but is 
'not sufficiently large to carry out the purposes which he 
' contemplated. These would extend to suites of rooms, 
kept at a regular temperature for consumptive cases, and to 
a separate building for fever cases, which are now totally 

■ excluded. It appears only to want greater publicity to 

■ attain its full scope of usefulness ; but unless supported by 
' the class for whom it is designed it cannot be maintained at 

■ all. That such a club is certain to be»well supported at 
some period not far distant, we can plainly see; but the 

' attempt may be premature. Its founder — deriving no per- 
sonal advantage from the design, but devoting much time 
and labour to its advancement — has rested its claim to pub- 
lic support simply on the ground, that, as when the middle 
and higher classes combine to found public schools and col- 

' leges, and to build and endow churches, they solicit the 
contributions of the rich and benevolent because no new 
thing, however excellent in itself, or however affluent in the 
means of securing its ultimate independence and prosperity, 

' can be set on foot without some capital ; so this institution 
appeals to the public for assistance, to enable it to miticrate 
suffering, to shorten the duration of disease, and to save life. 
The Bank of England, and the large and influential mer- 
chants' houses have seen the good of the undertaking, and 
have contributed largely to promote it ; nor should we omit 



<0 LOUD ASHLEY AND 

to notice in particular tlie strenuous exertions of Mr. Tho- 
mas Chapman, the Chairman of the Sanatorium Committee. 

Amidst his many arduous and apparently endless labours, 
some words of encouragement should be addressed to Dr. 
Southvvood Smith, who in his jjrivate station devotes himself 
to the difiusion of philosophical truth, and to the instruction 
of the people in some of the most practically interesting and 
least understood parts of knowledgt;. He has described for 
them, the wonderful structures that form the outward and 
visible machinery of life, and the still more wonderful 
results of its action — the processes that constitute the vital 
functions. He has shown the brighter portion of the height 
and depth of our human nature in the Sources of Happiness, 
and has proved that " in the entire range of the sentient 
creation, without a single exception, the higher the organ- 
ized structure, the greater the enjoyment to which it minis- 
ters and in which it terminates." He has so expoonded the 
philosophy of Pain, as to communicate to the mourning and 
desponding, heart and hope, and has taught in the noblest 
sense the uses of adversity. He has still-to deduce from the 
action of physical agents on living structures the laws of 
health, and to expound the intellectual and moral constitu- 
tion based on the physical -and growing out of it ; without a 
knowledge of which, neither the mother nor the educator 
can avoid the most pernicious errors, nor ultimately reach 
their goal. There are minds and hearts that thank him for 
what he has already accomplished, and that anxiously await 
the completion of his work. , ■* 

By his public labours Dr. Smith has awakened the atten- 
tion of the people at large, and of the legislature, to those 
physical causes of suffering, disease, and premature death,- 
which, while they afflict the whole community, press with 
peculiar severity on the poorer classes ; and has shown not 
only that these causes are removable, but the means by 
which human wisdom and energy may certainly succeed in 
removing them. And he is peculiarly fitted to render 
services to the community on this important subject, in con- 
sequence of his intimate acquaintance with that dreadful 
train of diseases which are entailed on humanity by our in- 
attention to removing the causes of the febrile poison. 

Lord Ashley is yet young, and few men have before 
them a more noble, or more successful career. He has 



DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. 79 

proved that he possesses the qualities requisite for the per- 
formance of the mission to wliich he has felt the vocation. 
He is not only intellectual, but possessed of the greatest 
industry, perseverance, and confidence in his cause, yet dif- 
fident of himself from the very depth of his feeling concern- 
ing it ; not wanting in firmness, yet candid and conciliating, 
and though earnest even to enthusiasm, tempering and di- 
recting the impulses of zeal by a sober and sound judgment. 
His singleness of purpose, his unquestioned sincerity and 
honesty, his diligence in collecting facts, his careful sifting, 
lucid arrangement, and concise and candid exposition of 
them, and his plain unaffected language and unpretending 
address, have secured him the deeply respectful attention 
even of the House of Commons. Sustained in his appeals 
to that difficult assembly by the profound consciousness that 
the cause he advocates must engage on its side the sympa- 
thies of our common humanity, on which he throws himself 
with a^generous confidence, he often produces the highest 
t results of eloquence. He has already calmed the fears of 
: the capitalists ; conciliated the Government ; engaged the 
co-operation of the Legislature ; placed under the protec- 
tion of the Law the children of the factories; placed under 
1 the protection of the Law the still more helpless children 
doomed to the mines and collieries ; and to the female chil- 
I dren and women, heretofore confined therein, he has said — 
"** You are free, and shall do the work of beasts in the atti- 
itude of beasts, no more." Lord Ashley has still to emanci- 
pate apprentices; to obtain a general registration of acci- 
dents; to improve the localities and dwellings of the poor; 
-and to give the compensating benefit of education to those 
.whose early years are spent in labour. Because the first 
attempts to accomplish these great objects have failed, let 
no evasions, obstacles, delays, discourage him, nor let 

him — 

f 

" Bate a jot, — 
' Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 

Right onward." 



THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 



" POISON IN JEST." 

At the conclusion of the majority of the " Ingoldsby 
Legends," there are verses entitled " Moral ;" and this may 
have been considered by some as a very advantageous addi- 
tion to productions which have had so extensive a sale, and 
consequently so extensive an influence upon the minds of 
particular classes of readers. At the end of the " Legend 
of a Shirt " there occurs the following, — 

Moral. 
" And now for some practical hints from the story 

Of Aunt Fan's misliap, which I've thus laid before ye ; 
For, M rather too gay 
I can venture to say 
A fine vein of morality is, in each lay 
Of my primitive Muse the distinguishing trait!'" 

'Und Series. 

Now, either this is meant to be the fact ; or it is not. If 
meant as a fact, it will be the business of this paper to dis- 
play what sort of morality these popular legends contain. 
But it is not seriously meant ! — the author is " only in fun !" 
Very well ; then the sort of fun in which he abounds shall 
be displayed, together with the "fine vein of morality" 
which it is to be presumed his Muse does not contemplate. 

The storj of " Nell Cook," (second series,) is very 
clearly and graphically told in rhyme. Nelly is the cook- 
maid of a portly Canon, a learned man with " a merry eye." 
Nelly, besides being an excellent cook, is also a very comely 
lass, and the twofold position she holds in the private es- 
tablishment of the Canon is sufl^ciently apparent. In this 
merry condition of gastronomical affairs, there arrives " a 
lady gay" in a coach and four, whom the Canon presses to 
his breast as his Niece, gives her his blessing, and kisses 
her ruby lip. Nelly, the mistress cook, looks askew at this, 



THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 81 

suspecting they were " a little less than 'kin, and rather 
more than kind." The gay Lady remains feasting with the 
Ciiion in his house, quaffing wine, and singing Bobbing 
Joan ! The cook becomes jealous of the clergyman, hates 
the assumed Niece, and hits upon a plan for discovering 
the real truth of the relationship. She hides the poker and 
tongs in the Lady's bed ! The said utensils remain there 
unheeded during six weeks — and the primitive Muse with 
" a fine vein of morality" says she does not know where the 
Lady took her rest all that time ! To be brief; Nelly puts poi- 
son into her cookery — the bell rings for prayers— the Canon 
does not come — cannot be found. They search, however, 
and eventually breaking open the door of a bed-chamber, 
they find the Canon lying dead upon the bed, and his 
"Niece" upon the floor, dead also. The black, swollen, 
livid forms, are described ; and the Prior then says, " Well ! 
here's a pretty Go !" When the assumed relationship of 
the parties is mentioned in the " sacred fane," the Sacristan 
" puts his thumb unto his nose, and spreads his fingers out !" 
It may now be fairly assumed — with submission — that the 
Ingoldsby Muse is not serious, but only in fun — in fact that 
she is " rather too gay." To proceed, therefore, with the 
sequel of this extremely droll story. 

The monks, or somebody employed by them, as it seems, 
seize upon Nelly, and taking up a heavy paving stone near 
]the Canon's door, bury her alive under it. And, — 

" I've been told, that moan and groan, and fearful wail and ehriefc 
Came from beneath that paving stone for nearly half a week — 
For three long days, and three long niglits came forth those sounds of fear; 
Then all was o'er — they never more fell on the listening ear !" 

Excellent fun ! — buried alive! — moans and shrieks for 
three days and nights ! — really this fine vein of morality will 
ibc the death of us ! 

.; But these things are not meant to be pleasant. This is 
'meant to be serious. It certainly looks very like that. In 
/process of years three masons take up the heavy stone, and 
underneath it, in a sort of dry well, they discover a fleshless 
-skeleton. This also looks v.ery serious. But presently we 
, shall find that horror and levity are exquisitely blended — 
(the " smiles and the tears," as it is beautifully said by some 
>■ admirers, in extenuation. For " near this fleshless skele- 
,toii" there lies a small pitcher, and a " mouldy piece of 

5 



82 THOMAS INGOLDSBT. 

kissing-crust !" Here it may truly be said that Life and 
Death meet in horrible consummation. It is awfully funny, 
indeed ! 

Under the head of " Moral," at the end, all morality is 
evaded by silly common-place exhortations, intended to pass 
for humour, — such as cautioning " learned Clerks" not to 
" keep a pretty serving-maid;" and " don't let your Niece 
sing Sobbing Joan," and " don't eat too much pie!" — poi- 
soned pie. 

Here is another of these fine veins of a Muse who 
" poisons in jest." A learned Clerk — the clergy are 'spe- 
cially favoured with prominently licentious positions in these 
horrible pleasantries — a learned Clerk comes to visit the 
wife of Gengulphus in his absence.* They eat, and drink, 
hold revels; the " spruce young Clerk " finds himself very 
much at home with "that frolicksome lady;" and then — 
having placed every thing quite beyond doubt, — the primi- 
tive Muse leaves a blank with asterisks, as if she were too 
delicate to say more. During one of their festivities the 
husband, Gengulphus, returns from a pilgrimage. The 
learned Clerk, the spruce young divine, is concealed by the 
wife in a closet, and she then bestows all manner of fond 
attentions upon her weary husband, whose " weakened body" 
is soon overcome by strong drink, and he falls into a sound 
sleep. The young divine then comes out of the closet, and 
assists the wife in murdering Gengulphus, by smothering 
and suffocation, all of which is related with the utmost levity. 
After this, they deliberately cut up the corpse. 

" So the Clerk and the Wife, they each took a knife. 
And the nippers that nipped the loaf-sugar for tea ; 
With the edges and points they severed tlie joints 
At the clavicle, elbow, hip, ankle, and knee." 

Having dismembered him " limb from limb," cutting off 
his hands at the wrists, by means of the great sugar-nippers, 
they determine upon throwing his head down the well. Be- 
fore doing this, however, they cut off his long beard, and 
stuff it into the cushion of an arm-chair, all of which is laugh- 
ably told. Then, the Muse does not mean to be serious? — 
this is not intended as an account of a murder done, or any 
thing beyond a joke. Read the next stanza. 

* See " Gengulphus," 1st Series. 



THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 83 

" They contrived to pack up tlie trunk in a sack, 

Which they hid in an osier-bed outside the town, 
The Clerk hearing arms, legs, and all on his back. 
As the late Mr. Grcenacre served Mrs. Brown." 

Exactly — this is the point at issue — here is the direct, 
clearly-pronounced comparison with an actual horror, made 
palpable beyond all dispute. As did Greenacre, in like 
manner did this spruce young Clerk ! No pantomime mur- 
ders, no Christmas gambol burlesques — but the real thing is 
meant to be presented to the imagination. Here is, indeed, 
a specimen of a Muse being " rather too gay," and upon a 
very unusual occasion for merriment. Subsequently the 
story becomes preternatural, after the manner of a monkish 
legend, variegated with modern vulgarisms, and finally the 
wife seats herself upon the cushion which contains her mur- 
dered husband's beard, and the cushion sticks to her ! 

What follows cannot be ventured in prose. The " Moral" 
at the end, is not very symphonious; but in the usual 
twaddling style affecting to be humorous — " married pilgrims 
don't stay away so long," and " when you are coming home, 
just write and say so;" learned Clerks" stick to your books" — 
" don't visit a house when the master 's from home " — " shun 
drinking;" and " gay ladies allow not your patience to fail." 
A fair average specimen of the beautiful concentrated 
essence of that " fine vein of morality" which runs, or 
rather, gutters, through these legends. 

In the Legend of Palestine (second series) which is 
called " The Ingoldsby Penance," (?) the knight, who has 
gone to the holy wars, leaving his wife at Ingoldsby Hall, 
intercepts a letter, carried by a little page, from his wife to 
a paramour with whom she has " perhaps been a little too 
gay," as the holy Father remarks — whereby we discover 
what meaning is attached to those words. Sir Ingoldsby 
gives the little page a kick, which sends him somewhere, 
and the child is apparently killed on the spot. The para- 
mour turns out to be the revered Prior of Abingdon ! Sir 
Ingoldsby forthwith cuts off the reverend man's head. His 
account of the style in which he murdered his wife, the lady 
Alice, must be told in his own words : — 

'* And away to Ingoldsby Hull I flew ! 

Dame Alice I found — 

She s:ink on the ground — 
I twisted her neck till J twisted it round ! 
With jibe, and jeer, and mock, and scoff 
I twisted it on — till I twisted it off!'" 



84 THOMAS INGOLDSBY, 

Serious or comic? Surely this cannot be meant as a 
laughable thing, but as a dreadful actual revenge? At any 
rate, however, it is laughed at, and the very next couplet 
institutes a paraphrastic comparison with Humpty Dumpty 
who sat on a wall ! " All the king's doctors, and all the 
king's men," sings the primitive Muse — who is sometimes 
" rather too gay " — " can't put fair Alice's head on agenV 
It must by this time have become perfectly apparent that 
the only possible attempt at justification of such writings 
must be on the score of some assumed merit in the unex- 
ampled mixture of the ludicrous and the revolting — the 
"exquisite turns" — " the playfulness" of these bloody 
fingers. 

The legitimate aim of Art is to produce a pleasurable 
emotion; and through this medium, in its higher walks, to 
refine and elevate humanity. The art which has a mere 
temporary excitement and gratification of the external senses 
as its sole object, however innocent the means it employs, 
is of the lowest kind, except one. That one is the excite- 
ment of vicious emotions, unredeemed by any sincere pas- 
sion or purpose, whether justified or self-deluding ; and there 
are no emotions so vicious and so injurious as those which 
tend to bring the most serious feelings and conditions of 
human nature into ridicule and contempt; to turn the very 
body of humanity, " so fearfully and wonderfully made," 
inside out, by way of a jest, and to represent " battle, mur- 
der, and sudden death," not as dreadful things from which 
we would pray that all mankind might be " delivered," but 
as the richest sources of drollery and amusement. 

There is perhaps no instance of extensive popularity 
without ability of some kind or other, even when the popu- 
larity is of the most temporary description : and that the 
" Ingoldsby Legends" possess very great talent, of its kind, 
should never be denied. It will be treated in due course. 
Their merit is certainly not zoit, in its usual acceptation ; 
and their humour can scarcely be regarded as legitimate, 
being continually founded upon trifling with sacred, serious, 
hideous, or otherwise forbidden subjects, beyond the natural 
region of the comic muse, and often beyond nature herself. 

It will be acknowledged on all sides that the cheapest 
kind of wit or humour, or whatever passes current for either, 
is that which a man finds ready made. Whoever is the first 



THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 85 

to appropriate and display a certain quantity of this, in a 
new and attractive, or strildng shape, is pretty sure of find- 
ing a hirge audience. To appeal to established jokes, and 
slang sayings, and absurd events and characters, all well 
known to every body, is one means of amusing a large and 
by no means very select class : ghost stories and tales of 
preternatural wonder, if at all well told, are also sure of 
exciting a considerable interest, so long as the imagination 
retains its influence as a powerful faculty of the human mind ; 
and, though last, it is to be feared not least, there is a very 
large class extremely disposed to be pleased with a clever 
dalliance amidst unseemly subjects and stories, — a liquorish 
temerity which continually approaches the very verge of ver- 
bal grossness, and escapes under the insinuation, — in fact, 
an ingenious " wrapping up " of all manner of unsightly, 
unsavoury, and unmentionable things. 

The quantity of common-place slang in these Legends is 
a remarkable feature. Very much of it is of a kind that 
was in vogue in the time of our fathers and grandfathers, 
such as " Hookey Walker, — apple-pie order — a brace of 
shakes — cock-sure — meat for his master — raising the wind — 
smelling a rat — up to snuff — going snacks — little Jack Hor- 
ner," &c. ; and there is no want of the slang of present 
days, such as — " done brown — a shocking bad hat — like 
bricks — coming it strong — heavy wet — a regular guy — right 
as a trivet — a regular turn up — tipping a facer — cobbing and 
fibbing — tapping the claret — a prime set to !" &c. These 
choice morsels are all introduced between inverted commas 
to mark them as quotations ; as if this rendered them a jot 
the more fit to illustrate murderous tales ; or as if their dull 
vulgarity was excusable because it was not original. To 
use slang with impunity requires great tact, and good taste, 
and invention, and the finest humour ; — inverted commas do 
nothing. 

Many of the tales end with some very fusty old sayings, 
presented to the eye all in capital letters : — " Don't hallo 

BETORE you're QUITE OUT OF THE WOOD ; NEVER BORROW A 
HORSE YOU don't KNOW OF A FRIEND ; LOOK AT THE CLOCK ; 
WHO SUPS WITH THE DeVIL SHOULD HAVE A LONG SPOON," 

&c., eacl of which is intended as a rare piece of humour to 
wind up with. The stanzas also display in capital letters 
such excellent new wit as — " Keep vour handkerchief 



86 



THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 



SAFE IN YOUR POCKET ; LITTLE PITCHERS HAVE LONG EARS ; 
BEWARE OF THE RhINE, AND TAKE CARE OF THE RhINO ; I 
WISH YOU MAY GET IT ; YOU CAn't MAKE A SII-K PURSE OF A 
sow's EAR ; A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE 

BUSH !" &c. As for the distiches and stanzas at the end 
of most of the legends under the old fashioned head " moral," 
they are all written upon the same principle of arrant twad- 
dling advice, the self-evident pointlessness of which is in- 
tended to look like humour, and are humiliating to common 
sense. 

Amidst all these heavy denunciations it is " quite a re- 
lief" to be able to admire something. In freedom and 
melody of comic versification, and in the originality of com- 
pound rhymes, the " Ingoldsby Legends" surpass every 
thing of the kind that has appeared since the days of Hudi- 
bras and of Peter Pindar. The style is occasionally an in- 
different imitation of the old English ballads ; but this meth- 
od of compound rhyming is of a kind which may be regard- 
ed, if not as the discovery of new powers in the English 
language, at least as an enlargement of the domain of those 
powers. The legends contain in almost every page the best 
possible illustration of the true principle of rhyming, which 
the best poets, and the public, have always felt to depend 
solely upon a good ear, and (more especially in the English 
language) to have nothing whatever to do with the eye and 
the similarity of letters, — an absurd notion which the ma- 
jority of critics, to this very day, entertain, and display. 
These legends are, in this respect, philological studies, in- 
disputable theoretically, and as novel as they are amusing in 
practice. The most incongruous and hitherto unimaginable 
combinations become thoroughly malleable in the Ingoldsby 
hand, and words of the most dissimilar letters constitute pcr- 
fect rhymes, single, double, and triple. Moreover, these in- 
stances are not a few ; they are abundant, and in almost 
every page. 

" His features, and phiz awry 
Show'd so much misery, 
And so like a dragon he 
Look'd in his agony," &c. 

Ingoldsby Legends, 2nd Series. 

" A nice little hoy lield a golden ewer, 
EmbossM and fill'd witli water as pure 
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur." 

1st Series. 



THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 87 



" Extremely annoyed by the ' tarnation ichop,' as it 
's call'd in Kentuck, on his head and its opposite, 

Blogg show'd tight 

When he saw, by the light 
Of the flickering candle, that had not yet quite 
Burnt down in the socket, thougli not over bright, 
Certain dark-colour'd stains, as of blood newly spilt, 
Reveal'd by the dog's having scratch'd off the quilt, 
Which hinted a story of horror and guilt ! 

'Twas ' 710 mistake' — 

He was ' tcide awake' 
In an instant ; for, when only decently drunk, 
Nothiug sobers a man so completely as 'funk.' " 



Ibid. 



Ibid. 



2nd Series. 



" From his finger he draws 
His costly turquoise : 
And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws," &c. 

" Both Knights of the Golden Fleece, high-born Hidalgoes, 
With whom e'en the King himself quite as a ' pal' goes." 

" Or if ever you've witness'd the face of a sailor 
Keturn'd from a voyage, and escaped from a gale, or 
Poetice ' Boreas,' that ' blustering railer,' 
To find that his wife, when he hastens to hail her, 
Has just ran away with his cash — and a tailor," &.C. 

Ibid. 

All these rhymes are perfect rhymes to the ear, which is 
the only true judge. Let critics of bad ear, or no ear, be- 
ware how they commit themselves in future by attempting 
to make correct rhyming a matter of literary eye-sight. 
These examples bring the question to a test more finally than 
any argument or disquisition could do. 

" The Most Reverend Don Garcilasso Quevedo 
Was just at this time, as he 
Now held the Primacy," &c. 

" A long yellow pin-a-fore 

Hangs down, each chin afore," Sec. 

Ibid. 

Which it seems of a sort is 

To puzzle our Cortes, 
And since it has quite flabbergasted this Diet, I 
Look to your Grace with no little anxiety, &c. 

* * * * 

So put your considering cap on — we're curious 
To learn your receipt for a Prince of Asturias. 

* * * * 

So distinguish'd a Pilgrim, — especially when he 
Considers the boon will not cost him one penny. 

* * * * 

Since your Majesty don't like the pease in the shoe, or to 
Travel — what say you to burning a Jeui or two 7 

Of all cookeries, most 

The Saints love a roast '. 
And a Jew's, of all others, the best dish to toast, &c. 

' Ibid 



Ibid. 



88 THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 

The rest of the rascals jump'd on him, and Burk''d Mm, 
The poor little Page, too, himself got no quarter, but 

Was serv'd the same way. 

And was found the next day 
With his heels in the air, and his head in the water-butt. 

\st Series. 

There is a class of people, who, endeavouring to reduce 
poetry to the strict laws of the understanding, defeat them- 
selves of every chance of being permitted to understand po- 
etry : there is, however, a much larger class, who, in read- 
ing verse of any kind, abandon all use whatever of the un- 
derstanding. The specimens of these admirable and mas- 
terly rhymes must not render us insensible to the hideous 
levity of the pictures they continually present to the imagina- 
tion. Thrown off our guard by the comicalities of the 
style, such things may be passed over with a laugh the first 
time ; (they have been so, too generally ;) but a second look 
produces a shudder, recollecting, as we do, the previous 
allusion to Greenacre, and knowing that these horrors are 
not meant for pantomime. 

In making some remarks on " the diseased appetite for 
horrors," Mr. Fonblanque has this passage, — 

" The landlord upon whose premises a murder is committed, is now-a-days a made 
man. The place becomes a show in the neighbourhood as the scene of a fair. The 
barn in which Maria Martin was murdered by Corder, was sold in tooth-picks ; the 
hedge through which the body of Mr. Weare was dragged, was purchased by the inch ; 
Bishop's house bids fair to go oiF in tobacco-stoppers and snuff-boxes, and the well 
will be drained at a guinea a quart. Really, if people indulge in this vile and horrid 
taste, they will tempt landlords to get murders committed in their houses, for the 
great protit accruing from the morbid curiosity."* 

Observe the different use made of wit in the foregoing 
extract, where ridicule and laughter are applied to a moral 
purpose, viz. to the diseased appetite for horrors — not to the 
horrors themselves, which were never, in the history of lit- 
erature, systematically ripjud np for merriment, till the ap- 
pearance of these Legends of sanguinary Broad Grins. 

The present age is sufficiently rich in its comic poets. 
They are nearly all remarkable for the ^ws^o of their pleas- 
antry, and in the singular fact that they have but little 
resemblance to each other. George Colman was an origi- 
nal ; Thomas Moore was an original ; the same may be said 
of Horace and James Smith ; of Theodore Hook ; of Hood,t 

* " England under Seven Administrations," by Albany Fonblanque. Vol. ii. 

t It was intended to place the name of " Thomas Hood" in conjunction with that 
of " Thomas Ingoldsl)y " at the head of this paper ; but the idea was abandoned out 
of respect to Mr. Hood, the moment the present writer had, for the first time, read 
these astounding " Legends '." 



THOMAS INGOLDSey. 89 

and Laman Blanchard and Titmarsh; of several of the wits 
oi Blackwood, and more especially of /^ra.sfr. And here, in 
the latter, a totally new species of comic writing should be 
noticed, viz., that of the classical burlesque, in which " Fa- 
ther Prout," and the late Dr. Maginn, have displayed a mas- 
tery over the Greek and Latin versification that was previ- 
ously unknown in literature, and certainly never suspected 
as possible. It was as if the dead languages were suddenly 
called to a state of preternatural life and activity, in which 
their old friends scarcely could believe their eyes, and the 
resuscitated tongues themselves appeared equally astonished 
at their own identity. All these writers are in various ways 
full of the soul of humour, wit, or merriment; but tiot one 
of them ever dreams of making a plaything of the last strug- 
gles of humanity, or the " raw heads" of the charnel house. 
The same natural bounds are also equally observed by all 
the comic prose writers, numerous as they are. The " In- 
goldsby Legends" stand quite alone — and they always will 
stand quite alone, — for the "joke" will never be repeated. 

They are constructed upon a very curious and outrageous 
principle. As every body finds his self-love and sense of the 
ridiculous in a high state of enjoyment at a " damned tra- 
gedy" by reason of the incongruity of the actual emotions 
compared with those which the subject was naturally in- 
tended to convey, and the luckless poet had built all his 
hopes upon conveying — the author of these Legends has hit 
upon apian for turning this not very amiable fact to account, 
by the production of a series of self-damned tragedies. Or, 
perhaps, they may be more properly termed most sanguinary 
melo-dramas, intermixed with broad farce over the knife 
and bowl. The justly reprehensible novel of " Jack Shep- 
pard " had nothing in it of this kind ; its brutalities were at 
least left to produce their natural revulsion ; the heroes did 
not gambol and slide in crimson horror, and paint their felon 
faces with it to " grin through collars." 

The prose tales of these volumes all harp, more or less, 
1 upon the same inhuman strings. Some of them, like the 
** Spectre of Tappington," are simply indelicate, but others 
are revolting. The death-bed (the reader is made fully to 
believe it is a death-bed) of the lady Rohesia, is of the lat- 
ter kind. Her husband, and her waiting maid, though fully 
' believing her to be just at the last gasp, carry on a direct 

5* 



90 THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 

amour seated on the edge of the death-bed ; and a *' cli- 
max" is only prevented by the bursting of the dying lady's 
quinsey ! The "Singular Passage in the life of the late 
Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity, as related by the Rev- 
erend Jasper Ingoldsby, M. A., his friend and Executor," 
has suggestions of still worse things. Though tedious in 
commencing, it is a well told, exciting tale of supernatural 
events. The chief event shall be quoted. A young girl is 
betrothed to a young man, who bids her farewell for a time, 
and practises the black art upon her while absent, so that 
she is sometimes " spirited away" from her home into his 
chamber by night, there to be subject to all kinds of unmen- 
tionable outrages. He moreover has a friend to assist in his 
orgie ! The girl thus alludes to it : — 

" How shall [proceed — but no, it is impossible, — not even to you, sir, can I — dare 
I — recount the proceedings of that unhallowed night of horror and shame. Were 
my life extended to a term commensurate with that of the Patriarchs of old, never 
could its detestable, its damning pollutions be effaced from my remembrance '. and oh ! 
above all, never could I forget the diabolical glee which sparkled in the eyes of my 
fiendish tormentors, as they witnessed the xcorse than useless struggles of their miser- 
able victim. Oh ! why was it not permitted me to take refuge in unconsciousness — 
nay, in death itself, from the abominations of which I was compelled to be, not only 
o witness, but a partaker," &c. — Ingoldsby Legends, 1st Series. 

The introduction of a second young man, by way of com- 
plicating this preternatural sensualism and horror, admits of 
no comment. No merriment and burlesque is introduced 
here. For once, a revolting scene and its suggestions, are 
allovved to retain their true colours. The master-secret of 
a life froths up from the depths, and the Tale closes as such 
things mostly do — with a death that looks like annihilation. 

Refinement is an essential property of the Ideal, and 
whatever is touched by ideality is so far redeemed from 
earth. But where there is no touch of it, all is of the earth, 
earthy. In this condition stands the Genius of the Ingolds- 
by Legends, eye-deep in its own dark slough. Every thing 
falls into it which approaches, or is drawn near. Of all 
pure things. Fairy Tales are among the most pure and inno- 
cent ; their ideality can pass safe and unsullied through all 
visible forms. But if amidst their revels and thin-robed 
dancings in the moonlight and over the moss, a sudden allu- 
sion be made which reduces them to earth — a mortal fact ' 
suddenly brought home, like that which says, "Look! this \ 
is a woman ; — Miss Jones of the Olympic \" then does the 
ideal vanish away with fairy-land, and leave us with a minor 



THOMAS INOOLDSBY. 



91 



theatre in its worst moments, and with such a tale as " Sir 
Rupert the Fearless," which is written upon the principle 
of one of those Olympic dogirrel burlesques, the desecration 
of poetry in sense as in feeling. Their tendency is to en- 
courage the public not to believe in true poetry or innocence 
on the stage, but to be always ready to laugh or think ill 
things. 

Having previously made an allusion to the laughable cir- 
cumstances of some Jews being burnt alive, the legend 
wiiich describes it may form an appropriate conclusion to 
this exposition. It is entitled " The Auto-da-Fe." This is 
the story. King Ferdinand had been married six years, and 
his consort not having presented him with " an Infant of 
Spain," he consults some of his grandees as to what he 
shall do for " an heir to the throne ?" All this part is ad- 
mirably worked up. The grandees evade reply, and "the 
Moft Reverend Don Garcilasso Quevedo," Archbishop of 
Toledo, is then consulted, and finally proposes an Auto-da- 
fe, at which they would burn, roast, and toast some Jews. 
A passage to this effect was quoted a few pages back. How 
this was at all likely to occasion her Majesty to present 
Spain with an heir, every reader, not in the secret, must be 
quite at a loss to guess. The Auto-da-fe, however, takes 
place, and by way of proving that it really is one, and not a 
pantomimic burlesque, the author introduces it by a few 
serious remarks on the " shrieks of pain and wild affright," 
and the " soul-wrung groans of deep despair, and blood, 
and death." In the very next stanza, he has some fun about 
" the smell of old clothes," and of the Jews roasting ; and 
in speaking of " the groans of the dying," he says they 
were " all hissing, and spitting, and boiling, and frying," 
&c. The allusion also to the very delicate story of making 
" pretty pork," at such a moment, finishes this monomani- 
asm of misplaced levity — "the bonne bouche!" as he calls 
it, of the Auto-da-fe ! But now for the heir to the throne — 
the Infant of Spain, which all this horror was to influence 
the Queen in producing to the world ! Her Majesty was 
absent from the atrocities so merrily described ; she had 
" locked herself up" in her Oriel — but not alone. A male 
devotee was with her to assist in " Pater, and Ave, and 
Credo," the double-entendre character of which is made 
very apparent, so that her Majesty does, in due course, bless 



92 THOMAS INGOLDSBY. 

the nation with an heir to the throne. And who does the 
astonished reader, who may not happen to be familiar with 
these very popular Legends, suppose it was that her Majesty 
had " locked herself up with 1" Why, the Archbishop of 
Toledo ! Yes, the most reverend Garcilasso ! — and so far 
from the slightest doubt being left on the matter, the author 
says it is not clear to him but that all Spain would have 
thought very meanly of " the pious pair" had it been other- 
wise! The "Moral" at the end, is as usual. In fact, 
rather worse. It tells you, "when you're in Rome, to do 
as Rome does !" and " in Spain, you must do as they do" — 
" don't be nice !" &c., &c. 

Throughout the whole of the foregoing remarks, it should 
be observed that no animadversions have been made on reli- 
gious grounds, nor on the score of conventional morality, 
nor on matters relating to social intercourse ; nor have any 
personalities escaped from the pen. All that has been said 
— and there was much to say — is upon the abstract grounds 
of Literature and Art ; with a view to the exposition and 
denunciation of a false principle of composition, as exem- 
plified in licentious works, which are unredeemed and unex- 
tenuated by any one sincere passion, and are consequently 
among the very worst kind of influences that could be exer- 
cised upon a rising generation. The present age is bad 
enough without such assistance. Wherefore an iron hand 
is now laid upon the shoulder of Thomas Ingoldsby, and a 
voice murmurs in his ear, " Brother ! — no more of this !" 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 



" Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng." 

MlLTOK. 

Let this page, 
Which charms the chosen Spirits of the Age, 
Fold itself up for a serener clime 
Of years to come, and find its recompense 
In that just expectation," 

Shelley. 

Walter Landor, when a Rugby boy, was famous, 
among other feats of strength and skill, for the wonderful 
precision with which he used a cast-net ; and he was not 
often disposed to ask permission of the owners of those 
ponds or streams that suited his morning's fancy. One day 
a farmer suddenly came down upon him, and ordered him 
to desist, and give up his net. Whereupon Landor instantly 
cast his net over the farmer's head : caught him ; entangled 
him ; overthrew him ; and when he was exhausted, ad- 
dressed the enraged and discomfited face beneath the 
meshes, till the farmer promised to behave discreetly. The 
pride that resented a show of intimidation, the prudence 
tliat instantly foresaw the only means of superseding pun- 
ishment, and the promptitude of will and action, are suffi- 
ciently conspicuous. The wilful energy and self-dependent 
force of character displayed by Walter Landor as a boy, 
and accompanied by physical power and activity, all of 
which were continued through manhood, and probably have 
been so, to a great extent, even up to the present time, have 
exerted an influence upon his genius of a very peculiar 
kind : — a genius healthy, but the healthfulness not always 
well applied — resolute, in a lion-like sense, but not intellec- 
tually concentrated and continuous ; and seeming to be 
capable of mastering all things except its own wilful im- 
pulses. 



94 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

Mr. Landoris a man of genius and learning, who stands 
in a position unlike that of any other eminent individual or 
his time. He has received no apparent influence from any 
one of his contemporaries ; nor have they or the public re- 
ceived any apparent influence from him. The absence of 
any fixed and definite influence upon the public is actually 
as it seems; but that he has exercised a considerable influ- 
ence upon the minds of many of his contemporaries is 
inevitable, because so fine a spirit could never have passed 
through any competent medium without communicating its 
electric forces, although from the very fineness of its ele- 
ments, the effect, like the cause, has been of too subtle a 
nature to leave a tangible or visible impress. 

To all these causes combined is attributable the singu- 
lar fact, that although Walter Savage Landor has been be- 
fore the public as an author during the last fifty years, his 
genius seldom denied, but long since generally recognized, 
and his present position admissibly in that of the highest 
rank of authors — and no man higher — there has never been 
any philosophical and critical estimate of his powers. Ad- 
mired he has often been abundantly, but the admiration has 
only been supported by '* extract," or by an oflf-hand opin- 
ion. The present paper does not pretend to supply this 
great deficiency in our critical literature ; it will attempt to 
do no more than " open up" the discussion. 

Walter Landor, when at Rugby School, was a leader in 
all things, yet who did not associate with his school-fellows 
— the infi\llible sign of a strong and original character and 
course through life. He was conspicuous there for his 
resistance to every species of tyranny, either of the masters 
and their rules, or the boys and their system of making fags, 
which things he resolutely opposed " against all odds ;" and 
he was, at the same time, considered arrogant and overbear- 
ing in his own conduct. He was almost equally famous for 
riding out of bounds, boxing, leaping, net-casting, stone- 
throwing, and for making Greek and Latin verses. Many 
of these verses were repeated at Rugby forty years after lie 
had left the school. The " master," however, studiously 
slighted him so long, that when at last the token was given 
of approbation of certain Latin verses, the indignant young 
classic being obliged to copy them out fairly in the " play- 
book," added a few more, commencing with, — 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 95 

" H:ec sunt malorum pessima carminum 
Q.Uot Landor unquam scripsit ; at accipe 
Q,ua! Tarquini servas cloacam, 
Unde tuuin, dea flava nomen," &c. 

From Rugby to Trinity College, Oxford, was the next 
remove of Walter Landor. He was " rusticated" for firing 
off a gun in the quadrangle ; but as he never intended to 
take a degree, he did not return. He left Oxford — let all 
the juvenile critics who have taken up facile pens of judg- 
ment about Mr. Landor during the last ten years, tremble as 
they read, and " doubt their own abilities" — in the summer 
of 1793, when he put forth a small volume of poems. They 
were published by Cadell, and it will not be thought very 
surprising that the first poems of a young man, at that time 
quite unknown to the world, should in the lapse of fifty 
years have become out of print. His next performances 
may, with sufficient trouble, be obtained. They are the 
poems of " Gebir," " Chrysaor," the " Phocasans," &c., 
and the very high encomiums passed upon "Gebir" by 
Southey, with whom Landor was not acquainted till some 
twelve years afterwards, were accounted as sufficient fame 
by their author. Southey's eulogy of the poem appeared in 
the Critical Review, to the great anger of Gifford, whose 
translation of " Juvenal " was by no means so much praised 
in the same number. One of the most strikingly character- 
istic facts in connection with Mr. Landor is, that while he 
has declared his own doubts as to whether Nature intended 
him for a poet, " because he could never please himself by 
any thing he ever did of that kind," it must be perfectly 
evident to every body who knows his writings, that he never 
took the least pains to please the public. The consequences 
were almost inevitable. 

After leaving Trinity, Mr. Landor passed some months 
in London, learning Italian, and avoiding all society; he 
then retired to Swansea, where he wrote " Gebir" — lived in 
comparative solitude — made love — and was happy. 

The " attitude " in which the critical literati of the time 
received the poem of" Gebir," was very much the same as 
though such a work had never been published. A well- 
written critique, however, did appear as one exception, in a 
northern provincial paper, in which Mr. Landor was com- 
pared, in certain respects, with Goethe ; another we have 
also seen, which was full of grandly eloquent and just ex- 



96 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

pressions of appreciation — printed, we believe, in Aberdeen, 
within two years since, and signed G. G. ; — but the earliest 
was written by Southey, as previously stated. No doubt 
Mr. Landor has read the latter, but it is his habit (and one 
more common among authors of original genius than is at 
all suspected) never to read critiques upon himself His 
feeling toward this department of literature may be estimated 
by his offer of a hot penny roll and a pint of stout, for break- 
fast (!) to any critic who could write one of his Imaginary 
Conversations — an indigestible pleasantry which horribly 
enraged more than one critic of the time. Of " Gebir," 
however, Coleridge was accustomed to speak in terms of 
great praise ; till one day he heard Southey speak of it with 
equal admiration, after which Coleridge altered his mind — 
' he did not admire it — he must have been mistaken.' 

A few biographical memoranda of Mr. Landor will be 
found interesting, previous to offering some remarks on his 
genius and works. During the time he was studying Ital- 
ian in London, after leaving Trinity, his godfather. Gene- 
ral Powell, was anxious that he should enter the army, for 
which he seemed peculiarly adapted, excepting that he 
entertained republican principles, which " would not do 
there." This proposal being negatived, his father offered to 
allow him 400/. per annum, if he would adopt the law and 
reside in the Temple ; but declared that he would allow him 
but little more than one-third of that sum, if he refused. Of 
course Walter Landor well knew that he might have enjoyed 
a gay London life with 400/. per annum, in the Temple, 
and neglected the law, as, here and there, a young gentle- 
man of the Temple is apt to do ; he, however, preferred to 
avoid false pretences, accepted the smaller income, and 
studied Italian. 

Mr. Landor wrote verses in Italian at this period, which 
were not very good, yet not perhaps worse than Milton's, 
The poetry of Italy did not captivate his more severely clas- 
sical taste at first ; he says it seemed to him " like the juice 
of grapes and melons left on yesterday's plate." He had 
just been reading /Eschylus, Sophocles, and Pindar. But 
his opinion was altered directly he read Dante, which he did 
not do till some years afterwards. 

That his uncle was not so far wrong in thinking Landor 
well suited to a military life, the following anecdote will 



WALTEU SAVAOK LANUOU, 97 

serve to attest. — At the breaking out of the Spanish war 
against the French, he was the first Englishman who landed 
in Spain. He raised a few troops at his own expense, and 
conducted them from Corunna to Aguilar,the head-quarters 
of Gen. Blake, Viceroy of Gallicia. For this he received 
the thanks of the Supreme Junta in the Madrid Gazette, 
together with an acknowledgment of the donation of 20,000 
reals from Mr Landor. He returned the letters and docu- 
ments, with his commission, to Don Pedro Cevallos, on the 
subversion of the Constitution by Ferdinand, — telling Don 
Pedro that he was willing to aid a people in the assertion of 
its liberties against the antagonist of Europe, but that he 
could have nothing to do with a perjurer and traitor. 

Mr. Landor went to Paris in the beginning of the cen- 
tury, where he witnessed the ceremony of Napoleon being 
made Consul for life, amidst the acclamations of multitudes. 
He subsequently saw the dethroned and deserted Emperor 
pass through Tours on his way to embark, as he intended, 
for America. Napoleon was attended only by a single ser- 
vant, and descended at the Prefecture, unrecognized by 
any body excepting Landor. The people of Tours were 
most hostile to Napoleon ; Landor had always felt a hatred 
towards him, and now he had but to point one finger at him, 
and it would have done what all the artillery of twenty years 
of war had failed to do. The people would have torn him 
to pieces. Need it be said Landor was too " good a hater," 
and too noble a man, to avail himself of such an opportu- 
nity. He held his breath, and let the hero pass. Perhaps, 
after all, there was no need of any of this hatred on the part 
of Mr. Landor, who, in common with many other exces- 
sively wilful men, were probably as much exasperated at 
Napoleon's commanding successes, as at his falling off from 
pure republican principles. Howbeit, Landor's great 
hatred, and yet " greater " forbearance are hereby chroni- 
cled. 

In 1806, Mr. Landor sold several estates in Warwick- 
shire which had been in his family nearly seven hundred years, 
and purchased Lantony and Comjoy in Monmouthshire, 
where he laid out nearly 70,000/. Here he made extensive 
improvements, giving employment daily, for many years, to 
between twenty and thirty labourers in building and plant- 
ing. He made a road, at his own expense, of eight miles 



98 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

long, and [lanted and fenced half a million of trees. The 
infamous behaviour of some tenants caused him to leave the 
country At this time he had a million more trees all ready 
to plant, which, as he observed, " were lost to the country 
by driving me from it. I may speak of their utility, if I 
must not of my own." The two chief offenders were 
brothers who rented farms of Mr. Landor to the amount of 
1500Z. per annum, and were to introduce an improved sys- 
tem of Suffolk husbandry. Mr. Landor got no rent from 
them, but all manner of atroc'.ous annoyances. They even 
rooted up his trees, and destroyed whole plantations. They 
paid nobody. When neighbours and work-people applied 
for money, Mr. Landor says, " they were referred to the 
Devil, with their wives and families, while these brothers 
had their two bottles of wine upon the table. As for the 
Suffolk system of agriculture, wheat was sown upon the last 
of May, and cabbages for winter food were planted in 
August or September." Mr. Landor eventually remained 
master of the field, and drove his tormentors across the 
seas ; but so great was his disgust at these circumstances 
that he resolved to leave England. Before his departure he 
caused his 'house, which had cost him some 8000/. to be 
taken down, that his son might never have the chance of 
similar vexations in that place. 

In 1811, Mr. Landor married Julia, the daughter of J. 
Thuillier de Malaperte, descendant and representative of 
Baron de Neuve-ville, first gentleman of the bed-chamber to 
Charles the Eighth. He went to reside in Italy in 1815, 
and during several years occupied the Palazzo Medici, in 
Florence. Subsequently he purchased the beautiful and 
romantic villa of Count Gherardesca at Fiesole, with its 
gardens and farms, scarcely a quarter of an hour's walk 
from the ancient villa of Lorenzo de' Medici, and resided 
there many years in comparative solitude. 

Of the difference between the partialities of the public, 
and the eventual judgments of the people; between a deep- 
ly-founded fame and an ephemeral interest, few more strik- 
ing examples will perhaps be discovered in future years 
than in the solitary course of Walter Savage Landor amidst 
the various " lights of his day." He has incontestably dis- 
played original genius as a writer; the highest critical 
faculty — that sympathy with genius and knowledge which 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 99 

can only result from imagination and generous love of truth 
— and also a fine scholarship in the spirit as well as the let- 
ter of classical attainments. But the public, tacitly, has 
denied his claims, or worse — admitted them with total in- 
difference, — letting fall from its ben »mbed fingers, work 
after work, not because any one ventured to say, or perhaps 
even to think, the books were unworthy, but because the 
hands were cold. A writer of original genius may be popu- 
lar in his lifetime, as sometimes occurs, by means of cer- 
tain talents and tacts comprehended in his genius ; by the 
aid of startling novelties, or by broad and general effects; 
and by the excitement of adventitious circumstances ; — on 
which ground is to be worked the problem of Lord Byron's 
extensive popularity with the very same daily and yearly 
reading public that made mocks and mowes at Colerido-e, 
and Wordsworth, and Shelley, and Keats. But, as a gene- 
ral rule, the originality of a man, say and do what he may, 
is necessarily in itself an argument against his rapid popu- 
larity. In the case of Mr. Landor, however, other causes 
than the originality of his faculty have opposed his fiivour 
with the public. He has the most select audience perhaps, 
— the fittest, fewest, — of any distinguished author of the 
day; and this of his choice. "Give me," he said in one 
of his prefaces, " ten accomplished men for readers, and I 
am content;" — and the event does not by any means so far 
as we could desire, outstrip the modesty, or despair, or dis- 
dain, of this aspiration. He writes criticism for critics, and 
poetry for poets : his drama, when he is dramatic, will sup- 
pose neither pit nor gallery, nor critics, not dramatic laws. 
He is not a publican among poets — he does not sell his Am- 
reeta cups upon the highway. He delivers them rather with 
the dignity of a giver, to ticketed persons; analyzing their 
flavour and fragrance with a learned delicacy, and an appeal 
to the esotsric. His very spelling of English is uncommon 
and theoretic. He has a vein of humour which by its own 
nature is peculiarly subtle and evasive ; he therefore refines 
upon it, by his art, in order to prevent any body discovering 
it without a grave, solicitous, and courtly approach, which 
is unspeakably ridiculous to all the parties concerned, and 
which, no doubt, the author secretly enjoys. And as if poet- 
ry were not, in English, a sufficiently unpopular dead lan- 
guage, he has had recourse to writing poetry in Latin ; with 



100 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 

dissertations on the Latin tongue, to fence it out doubly 
from the populace. " Odiprofanum vulgus, ct arceo." 

Whether Mr. Landor writes Latin or English, poetry or 
prose, he does it all with a certain artistic composure, as if 
he knew what he was doing, and respected the cunning of 
his right hand. At times he displays an equal respect for 
its wilfulness. In poetry, his " Gebir," the " Phocajans," 
and some other performances take a high classic rank. He 
can put out extraordinary power both in description and 
situation ; but the vitality, comprehended in the power, does 
not overflow along the inferior portions of the work, so as 
to sustain them to the level of the reader's continued atten- 
tion. The poet rather builds up to his own elevations than 
carries them out and on ; and the reader passes from admi- 
ration to admiration, by separate states or shocks, and not 
by a continuity of interest through the intervals of emotion. 
Thus it happens that his best dramatic works, — those, the 
impression of which on the mind is most definite and excel- 
lent, — are fragmentary ; and that his complete dramas are 
not often read through twice, even by readers who applaud 
them, but for the sake of a particular act or scene. 

A remark should be made on Mr. Landor's blank verse, 
in which the poems just named, and several others, are 
written. It is the very best of the regular-syllable class, the 
versification of "numbers," as they have been characteris- 
tically called by the schools. His blank verse is not only 
the most regular that ever was written, but it is the most 
sweet, and far less monotonous than we should expect of a 
musical system which excluded occasional discords. It has 
all the effect of the most melodious rhyming heroic verse ; 
indeed, it often gives the impression of elegiac verses in 
rhyme. As blank verse it is a very bad model. There is 
more freedom in his dramatic verse, and always the purest 
style. 

His dramatic works (except the compact little scenes 
entitled " Pentalogia," which are admirable) are written 
upon an essentially undramatic principle; or, more prob- 
ably, on no principle at all. Mr. Landor well knows "all 
the laws," and they seem to provoke his will to be lawless. 
In this species of drama-looking composition he displays at 
times the finest passion, the most pure and perfect style of 
dramatic dialogue, and an intensity of mental movements, 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. lUl 

with their invisible, undeclared, yet necessarily tragic re- 
sults ; all of which prx)ves him to possess the most won- 
derful three-fourths of a great dramatic genius which ever 
appeared in the world. But the fourth part is certainly 
wanting by way of making good his ground to the eyes, and 
ears, and understanding of the masses. In his " Andrea of 
Hungary," the action does not commence till the last scene 
of the third act ; and is not continued in the first scene of 
the fourth! Instead of the expected continuation, after all 
this patience, the confounded reader has his breath taken 
away by the sauntering entrance of Boccacio — the novelist 
— accompanied by Fiammetta, who having nothing whatever 
to do with the drama, the former sings her a little song ! 
This extremely free-and-easy style of treading the boards is 
so very new and delightful that it excites the idea of con- 
tinuing the scene by the introduction of the Genius of the 
Drama, with a paper speech coming out of his mouth, on 
which is inscribed the Laws of Concentration and Con- 
tinuity, the Laws of Progressive action, and the Art of 
Construction. To whom. Enter the Author, with a cast- 
nd. He makes his cast to admiration ; trips up the heels 
of the Genius of the Drama, and leaves it sprawling. It is 
his own doing. 

In whatever Mr. Landor writes, his power, when he puts 
it forth, is of the first order. He is classical in the highest 
sense. His conceptions stand out, clearly cut and fine, in a 
magnitude and nobility as far as possible removed from the 
small and sickly vagueness common to this century of letters. 
If he seems obscure at times, it is from no infirmity or 
inadequacy of thought or word, but from extreme concen- 
tration, and involution in brevity — for a short string can be 
tied in a knot, as well as a long one. He can be tender, as 
the strong can best be ; and his pathos, when it comes, is 
profound. His descriptions are fiill and startling ; his 
thoughts, self-produced and bold ; and he has the art of 
(taking a common-place under a new aspect, and of leaving 
■the Roman brick, marble. In marble indeed, he seems to 
iwork ; for there is an angularity in the workmanship, 
whether of prose or verse, which the very exquisiteness of 
;the polish renders more conspicuous. You may complain 
too of hearing the chisel ; but after all, you applaud the 
work — it is a work well done. The elaboration produces 



102 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOK. 

no sense of heaviness, — the severity of the outline does not 
militate against beauty ; — if it is cold, it is also noble — if not 
impulsive, it is suggestive. As a writer of Latin poems, he 
ranks with our most successful scholars and poets ; having 
less harmony and majesty than Milton had, — when he 
aspired to that species of " Life in Death," — but more 
variety and freedom of utterance. Mr. Landor's English 
prose writings possess most of the characteristics of his 
poetry ; only they are more perfect in their class. His 
"Pericles and Aspasia," and " Pentameron," are books for 
the world and for all time, whenever the world and time 
shall come to their senses about them ; complete in beauty 
of sentiment and subtlety of criticism. His general style is 
highly scholastic and elegant, — his sentences have articula- 
tions, if such an expression may be permitted, of very excel- 
lent proportions. And, abounding in striking images and 
thoughts, he is remarkable for making clear the ground 
around them, and for lifting them, like statues to pedestals, 
where they may be seen most distinctly, and strike with the 
most enduring though often the most gradual impression. 
This is the case both in his prose works and his poetry. It 
is more conspicuously true of some of his smaller poems, 
which for quiet classic grace and tenderness, and exquisite 
care in their polish, may best be compared with beautiful 
cameos and vases of the antique. 

Two works should be mentioned — one of which is only 
known to a kw among his admirers, and the other not at 
all. Neither of them were published, and though printed 
they were very little circulated. The first is entitled, 
" Poems from the Arabic and Persian." They pretended 
to be translations, but were written by Landor for the plea- 
sure of misleading certain orientalists, and other learned 
men. In this he succeeded, and for the first time in the 
known history of such hoaxes, 7iot to the discredit of the 
credulous, for the poems are extremely beautiful, and 
breathe the true oriental spirit throughout. They are 
ornate in fancy, — graceful, and full of unaffected tender- 
ness. They were printed in 1800, with many extremely 
erudite notes; in writing which, the author, no doubt, 
laughed very much to himself at the critical labour and 
searching they would excite. The other production is 
called " A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detract- 



WALTER SAVAHK I.ANDOR. 103 

ors," printed in 1836. It contains many just indignations, 
terrible denunciations, and cleaving blows against those who 
used not many years since to make a rabid crusade upon all 
genius ; but the satire occasionally makes attacks upon some 
who do not deserve to be so harshly treated by a brother 
author ; and we cannot but rejoice that this satire (in its 
present state) has not been published. 

Mr. Landor's wit and humour are of a very original 
kind, as previously remarked. Perhaps in none of his 
writings does their peculiarity occur so continuously as in 
a series of Letters, entitled " High and Low Life in Italy." 
I Every sarcasm, irony, jest, or touch of humour, is secreted 
beneath the skin of each tingling member of his sentences. 
; His wit and his humour are alike covered up amidst various 
things, apparently intended to lead the reader astray, as cer- 
I tain birds are wont to do when you approach the nests that 
I contain their broods. Or, the main jests and knotty points 
r of a paragraph are planed down to the smooth level of the 
litest of the sentences, so that the reader may walk over them 
I without knowing any thing of the matter. All this may be 
[natural to his genius ; it may also result from pride, or per- 
(Versity. So far from seeking the public, his genius has dis- 
) played a sort of apathy, if not antipathy, to popularity ; 
\tlurefore, the public must court it, if they would enjoy it; 
to possess yourself of his wit you must scrutinize ; to be let 
flinto the secret of his humour you must advance " pointing 
IS the toe." Such are the impressions derivable from Mr. 
a Landor's writings. In private social intercourse nothing 
jof the kind is apparent, and there are few men whose con- 
to versation is more unaffected, manly, pleasing, and instruc- 
|.[tive. 

The imagination of Mr. Landor is richly graphic, 
3i classical, and subtly refined. Tn portraying a character, 
jihis imagination identifies itself with the mentality and the 
i emotions of its inner being, and all those idiosyncracies 
J which may be said to exist between a man and himself, but 
with which few, if any body else, have any business. In 
pother respects, most of his characters — especially those of 
^ihis own invention — might live, think, move, and have their 
J being in space, so little does their author trouble himself 
with their corporeal conditions. Whether it be that their 
iiauthor feels his own physique so strongly that it does not 



i04 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

occur to him that any one else can need such a thing — he 
will find all that for them — or that it is the habit of his 
genius to abstract itself from corporeal realities, (partly 
from the perverse love a man continually has of being his 
own " opposite,") and ascend into a more subtle element of 
existence, — certain it is that many of his characters are 
totally without material or definite /brw; appear to live no- 
where, and upon nothing, and to be very independent 
agents, to whom practical action seldom or never occurs. 
" They think, therefore they are." They feel, and know, 
(they are apt too often to know as much as their author.) 
therefore they are characters. But they are usually without 
bodily substance ; and such form as they seem to have, is an 
abstraction which plays round them, but might go off in air 
at any time, and the loss be scarcely apparent. The de- 
signs of his larger works, as wholes, are also deficient in 
compactness of form, precision of outline, and condensation. 
They often seem wild, not at all intellectually, but from 
ungoverned will. It is difficult not to arrive at conclusions 
of this kind — though different minds will, of course, see dif- 
ferently — after a careful study of the dramas of" Andrea of 
Hungary," "Giovanna of Naples," and " Fra Rupert;" the 
" Pericles and Aspasia," the " Pentameron and Pentalogia," 
&/C. The very title of the " Imaginary Conversations," 
gives a strong foretaste of Mr. Landor's predominating 
ideality, and dismissal of mortal bonds and conditions. The 
extraordinary productions last named are as though their 
author had been rarefied while listening to the conversation, 
or the double soliloquies, of august Shades; all of which he 
had carefully written down on resuming his corporeality, 
and where his memory failed him he had supplied the defi- 
ciency with some sterling stuff of his own. The Lan- 
dorean " peeps" seen through these ethereal dialogues and 
soliloquies of the mighty dead, are seldom to be mistaken ; 
and though hardly at times in accordance with their compa- 
ny, are seldom unworthy of the highest. 

As a partial exception to some of the foregoing remarks, 
should be mentioned the " Examination of William Shak- 
speare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt., touching Deer-steal- 
ing." Of all the thousands of books that have issued from 
the press about Shakspeare, this one of Mr. Landor's is by 
far the most admirable. It is worth them all. There is the 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 105 

highvvater mark of genius upon every page, lit by as true a 
sun as ever the ocean mirrored. Perfect and inimitable 
from beginning to end, that it has not become the most 
popular of all the books relating to Shak^peare, is only to 
be accounted for by some perversity or dulness of the pub- 
lic. The book is, certainly, not read. There is great love 
and reading bestowed upon every cant about Shakspeare, 
and much interest has been shown in all the hoaxes. Per- 
haps the public thought this book was authentic. 

In an age of criticism like this, when to "take" a posi- 
tion over a man and his work, is supposed to include propor- 
tionably superior powers of judgment, though not one dis- 
covery, argument, or searching remark, be adduced in 
proof; when analysis is publicly understood to mean every 
thing that can be done for the attainment of a correct esti- 
mate, and the very term, alone, of synthesis looks pedantic 
and outre ; and when any anonymous young man may 
gravely seat himself, in the fancy of his unknowing readers, 
far above an author who may have published works — of 
) genius, learning, or knowledge and experience, at the very 
period that his We Judge was perhaps learning to write at 
' school — it is only becoming, in an attempt like that of the 
, present paper, to disclaim all assumption of finality of judg- 
ment upon a noble veteran of established genius, concern- 
' ing whom there has never yet been one philosophically ela- 
; borated criticism. To be the first to " break ground" upon 
the broad lands of the authors of characters and scenes from 
] real life, is often rather a perilous undertaking for any 
i known critic who values his reputation ; but to unlock the 
r secret chambers of an ethereal inventiveness, and pronounce 
! at once upon its contents, would only manifest the most 
i( short-sighted presumption. Simply to have unlocked such 
. chambers for the entrance of others, were task enough for 
one contemporary. 

Any sincere and mature opinions of the master of an art 
are always valuable, and not the less so when commenting 
' upon established reputations, or those about which a contest 
still exists. We may thus be shaken in our ffiith, or con- 
firmed in it. Mr. Landor's mode of expressing his opinion 
.often amounts to appealing to an inner sense for a corrob- 
, oration of the truth. He says, in a letter to a friend, " T 
found the * Faery Q,ueen ' the most delightful book in the 

6 



106 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

world to fall asleep upon by the sea-side. Geoffrey Chaucer 
always kept me wide awake, and beat at a distance all 
other English peels but Shukspeare and Milton, in many 
places Keats approaches him." After remarking on the 
faults and occasional affectations discoverable in two or 
three of the earliest poems of that true and beautiful genius, 
Mr. Landor adds, that he considers " no poet (always ex- 
cepting Shakspeare) displays so many happy expressions, 
or so vivid a fancy, as Keats. A few hours in the Paecile 
with the Tragedians would have made him all he wanted — 
majestically sedate. I wonder if any remorse has overtaken 
his murderers." 

Mr. Landor is not at all the product of the present age ; 
he scarcely belongs to it; he has no direct influence upon 
it : but he has been an influence to some of its best teach- 
ers, and to some of the most refined illustrators of its vigor- 
ous spirit. For the rest — for the duty, the taste, or the 
favour of posterity — when a succession of publics shall have 
slowly accumulated a residuum of "golden opinions" in 
the shape of pure admiring verdicts of competent minds, 
then only, if ever, will he attain his just estimation in the 
not altogether impartial roll of Fame. If ever? — the words 
fell from the pen — and the manly voice of him to whom they 
were applied, seems to call from his own clear altitude, 
" Let the words remain." For in the temple of posterity 
there have hitherto always appeared some immortalities 
which had better have burnt out, while some great works, 
or names, or both, have been suffered to drift away into 
oblivion. That such is likely to be the fote of the writings 
of Walter Savage Landor, nobody can for a moment be- 
lieve ; but were it so destined, and he could foresee the re- 
sult, one can imagine his taking a secret pleasure in this 
resolution of his works into their primitive elements. 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 



" While the still morn wont out with sandals gray, 
He touched the temlcr stojis ol' carious quills, 
With eager thought, warbling his Doric lay : 
And now the sun had si retched out all the hills. 
And now was dropt into the western bay ; 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue : 
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new." 

LVCIDAS. 

" And all was conscience and tender lieart. 

***** 
And so discreet and fair of eloquence,; 
So benigne and so digne of reverence, 
And coulde so the people's heart embrace. 
That each her loveth that looketh on her face. 

***** 
Published was the bounty of her name. 
And eke beside in many a region : 
If one saitli weli, another saith the same. 

***** 
There n' as discord, rancour, or heaviness, 
In all the land, that she ne could appease. 
And wisely bring them all in heartes ease." 

Chaucer. 

The numerous literary labours of William and Mary 
Hovvitt, are so inextricably and so interestingly mixed up 
with their biographies, that they can only be appropriately 
treated under one head. 

William Howitt is a native of Derbyshire, where his 
family have, been considerable landed proprietors for many 
generations. In the reign of Elizabeth, a Thomas Howitt, 
Esq., married a Miss Middleton, and on the division of the 
estate, of which she was co-heiress, the manors of Wansley 
and Eastwood fell to the lot of Mrs. Howitt, who came to 
reside with her husband at Wansley Ilall in Nottingham- 
shire. 

The Howitts — according to a memoir of their early 
days, now out of print, and of which we shall avail our- 
selves, as far as it goes, having ascertained its authenticity — 



108 WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 

the Hovvitts appear to have been of the old school of 
country squires, who led a jolly, careless life — hunting, 
shooting, feasting, and leaving their estate to take care of 
itself as it might, and which, of course, fell into a steady 
consumption. The broad lands of Wansley and Eastwood 
slipped away piecemeal ; Wansley Hall and its surrounding 
demesne followed; the rectory of Eastwood, which had been 
a comfortable birth for a younger son, was the last portion 
of Miss Middleton's dowry which lingered in the family, and 
that was eventually sold to the Plumtre family, in which it 
yet remains. The rectors of Eastwood appear, from family 
documents, to have very faithfully followed out such an edu- 
cation as they may be supposed to have received from their 
parents. They were more devoted to the field than the 
pulpit ; and the exploits of the last rector of the name of 
Howitt and old Squire Rolleston, of Watnall, are not yet 
forgotten. 

The demesne of one heiress being dissipated, there was 
not wanting another with which to repair the waste with 
her gold. The great-grandfiither of our author married the 
daughter and sole heiress of a gentleman of Nottingham- 
shire, with whom he received a large sum in money. This 
was soon spent, and so much was the lady's father exasper- 
ated at the hopeless waste of his son-in-law, that he cut off 
his own daughter with a shilling, and left the estate to an 
adopted son. I he disinherited man did not, however, learn 
wisdom from this lesson, unless he considered it wisdom 
" to daff the world aside and let it pass;" he adhered stoutly 
to the hereditary habits and maxin)s of his ancestors; and 
a wealthy old aunt of his, residing at Derby, getting a sus- 
picion that he only waited her death to squander her hoard 
too, adopted the stratagem of sending a messenger to 
Ileanor to announce to him the melancholy intelligence of 
her decease. The result justified her fears. The jolly 
squire liberally rewarded the messenger, and setting the 
village bells a-ringing, began his journey towards Derby to 
take possession. To his great consternation and chagrin, 
however, instead of finding the lady dead, he found her 
very much alive indeed, and ready to receive him with a 
most emphatic announcement, that she had followed the 
example of his father-in-law, and had struck him out of her 
will altogether. She faithfully kept her word. The only 
legacy which she left to this jovial spendthrift wns his great 



WILLIAM AND MARY IIOWITT. 109 

two-handled breakfast-pot, out of which he consumed every 
morning as much toast and ale as would have " filled " a 
baron of the fourteenth century. 

This old gentleman seems to have been not only of a 
most reckless, but also of an unresentful disposition. He 
appears to have continued a familiar intercourse with 
the gentleman who superseded him in the estate, who like- 
wise maintained towards him a conduct that was very 
honourable. The disinherited squire was one of the true 
Squire-Western school, and spent the remainder of his life 
in a manner particularly characteristic of the times. He 
and another dilapidated old gentleman of the name of John- 
son, used to proceed from house to house amongst their 
friends, till probably they had scarcely a home of their own, 
carousing and drinking "jolly good ale and old." They 
sojourned a long time at one of these places, regularly going 
out with the greyhounds in the morning, or if it were sum- 
mer, a-fishing, and carousing in the evenings, till one day 
the butler gave them a hint, by announcing that " the bar- 
rel was out." On this they proceeded to Lord Middleton's, 
at Wollerton, and after a similar career and a similar ca- 
rousing, to the house of a gentleman in Lincolnshire. The 
building of Wallerton Hall, it is said had considerably im- 
poverished the Middleton family; but Lord Middleton was 
unmarried ; and as the Lincolnshire gentleman had an only 
daughter and a splendid fortune, family tradition says, that 
by extolling the parties to each other a match was brought 
about by these old gentlemen, much to the satisfaction of 
both sides; and they were made free of the cellar and the 
greyhounds for the remainder of their lives. 

The son of this spendthrift, instead of being possessor 
of an estate, became a manager of a part of it for the 
fortunate proprietor. There was, however, a friendly feel- 
ing always kept up between the new proprietors and the 
Howitts, and by this means the father of our author — who 
was a man of a different stamp from his progenitors, 
was enabled, in some degree, to restore the fortunes 
of the family, and to establish a handsome property. Miss 
Tantum, whom he married, was a member of the Society 
of Friends, as her ancestors had been from the commence- 
ment of the Society ; and Mr. Thomas Howitt, previous to 
his marriage, as was required by the rules of the Friends, 
entered the Society, and has always continued in it. 



110 WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT, 

William Howitt, the subject of the present biographical 
sketch, is one of six brothers. He was educated at differ- 
ent schools of the Friends ; but, as we have frequently 
heard him declare, was much more indebted to a steady 
practice of self-instruction than to any school or teacher 
whatever. He early showed a predilection for poetry, and 
in a periodical of that day, called "Literary Recreations," 
a copy of some verses " On Spring" may be found, stated 
to be by " William Howitt, a boy thirteen years of age." 
During the time that he was not at school, he was accus- 
tomed, with his eldest brother, to stroll all over the coun- 
try, shooting, coursing, and fishing, with an indefatigable 
zeal which would have delighted any of the Nimrods from 
whom he was descended. As a boy he had been an eager 
birds'-nester, and these after pursuits, together with a 
strong poetical temperament, and a keen perception of the 
beauties of nature, made him familiar with all the haunts, 
recesses, productions, and creatures of the country. In this 
manner the greatest portion of his early life was spent. 
After he arrived at manhood, however, those country plea- 
sures were blended with an active study of Chemistry, Bot- 
any, Natural and Moral Philosophy, and of the works of 
the best writers of Italy, France, and his own country. He 
also turned the attention of his youngest brother, now Dr. 
Howitt, to the study of British Botany, and the Doctor has 
since prosecuted it with more constancy and success than 
himself General literature, and poetry, soon drew his at- 
tention more forcibly, and his marriage, in his twenty-eighth 
year, no doubt naturally contributed to strengthen this ten- 
dency. The lady of his choice was Miss Mary Botham, of 
Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, also a member of the Society of 
Friends, and now familiar to the public as the delightful 
authoress, Mary Howitt. 

Mary Howitt is, by her mother's side, directly descend- 
ed from Mr. William Wood, the Irish patentee, about whose 
half-pence, minted under a contract from the Government 
of George II., Dean Swift raised such a disturbance with 
his " Drapier's Letters," successfully preventing the issue 
of the coinage, and saddling Mr. Wood with a loss of 60, 
000/., Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, resisting all recom- 
pense for his loss, although Sir Isaac Newton, who was ap- 
pointed to assay the coinage, pronounced it better than the 
contract required, and Mr. Wood, of course, justly entitled 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. Ill 

to remuneration.* His son, Mr. Charles Wood, the grand- 
father of Mrs. Howitt, and who became assay-master in Ja- 
maica, was the first who introduced platinum into Europe. 

Mr. Howitt on his marriage went to reside in Stafford- 
shire, and continued there about a year. Mrs. Plowitt and 
himself being of the most congenial taste and disposition, 
determined to publish jointly a volume of poetry. This 
appeared under the title of " The Forest Minstrel," in 1823. 
It was highly applauded by the press, and is sufficiently char- 
acteristic of both its writers — the irresistible tendency of one 
to describe natural scenery, and the legendary propensities 
of the other. 

Soon after their marriage they undertook a walk into 
Scotland, having long admired warmly the ballad poetry 
and traditions of that country. In this ramble, after landing 
at Dumbarton, they went on over mountain and moorland 
wherever they proposed to go, for one thousand miles, walk- 
ing more than five hundred of it, Mrs. Howitt performing the 
journey without fatigue. They crossed Ben Lomond with- 
out a guide, and after enjoying the most magnificent spec- 
tacle of the clouds alternately shrouding and breaking 
away from the chaos of mountains around them, were en- 
veloped by a dense cloud, and only able to effect their de- 
scent with great difficulty and with considerable hazard. 
They visited Loch Katrine, Stirling, Edinburgh, and all the 
beautiful scenery for many miles round it, traversed Fife- 
shire, and then, taking Abbotsford in their route, walked 
through tiie more southern parts, visiting many places inte- 
resting for their historical or poetical associations, on to 
Gretna-Green, where all the villagers turned out brimfull of 
mirth, supposing they were come there to be married, es- 
pecially as they entered the public-house where such match- 
es are completed, and engaged the landlord to put them in 
the way to Carlisle. They returned by way of the English 
lakes, having, as they have been frequently heard to declare, 
enjoyed the most delightful journey imaginable. 

Soon after their return, they settled in Nottingham ; 
Mr. Howitt, though actively engaged in business, still de- 
voting his leisure to literary pursuits. Here they soon pub- 
lished another joint volume of Poems, called " The Deso- 

* See Ruding's " Annala of Coinage." 



112 WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 

lation of Eyam," which was received with equal favour by the 
public. The attention Avhich these two volumes excited, 
brought many apjilications from the editors of Annuals and 
Magazines; and both Mr. and Mrs. Hovvitt for some years 
contributed a great variety of articles to these publications. 

Mr. Howiit possesses such versatility that there are few 
quarters of literature in which his contributions would not 
equal the best. His papers in the " Heads of the People" 
were excellent. Mrs. Howitt's ballads have the true bal- 
lad spirit, and some of them are of exceeding sweetness. 
Her simplicity is without feebleness, and her occasional 
openings into power are striking and noble. 

The circumstance of their names having become attach- 
ed to so many separate articles, now led to a separate pub- 
lication of volumes. Mrs. Hovvitt has since published " The 
Seven Temptations," a dramatic work ; " Wood Leighton," 
a prose fiction, and several volumes for the young, all of 
which have acquired deserved popularity. 

Within the last half century a somewhat new class of 
writing has been introduced into this country with great 
success, and most fortunately for the public taste, as its in- 
fluence is most healthy and sweet, most refreshing and 
soothing, most joyous, yet most innocent. It is that of the 
unaffected prose pastoral. After Sir Philip Sidney's " Ar- 
cadia," there was no work which had so much of this spirit 
of the green fields and woods, as Walton's " Complete Ang- 
ler." A long period then intervened, and the same feeling 
can hardly be said to have shown itself, excepting in some 
of the works of Mrs. Barbauld, until the time of Burns, and 
Wordsworth, and Keats, in poetry, and Miss Mitford and 
Leigh Hunt in prose. The numerous essays and delightful 
papers of Leigh Hunt, and one little work in particular, en- 
titled " The Months," — together with the pastoral sketches 
of "Our Village," " Belford Regis," and " Country Sto- 
ries," are known to all. These works of Miss Mitford, if 
read by snatches, come over the mind as the summer air 
and the sweet hum of rural sounds would float upon the 
senses through an open window in the country ; leaving 
with you for a whole day a tradition of fragrance and dew. 
It is hardly necessary to add, that her prose pastorals are 
all redolent of a cordial and cheerful spirit. They are the 
poetry of matter-of-fact nature, fresh and at first hand. 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 113 

Who would not fain leave their other matters of fact, to go 
with these writers to gather lilies of the valley from the deep 
greenwoods? Sooth to say, if the seasons in England were 
always as they paint them, we should all choose to live out 
of doors, and nobody would catch cold. 

Miss Mitford is undoubtedly at the head of this delight- 
ful, and at present " small family" of prose pastoral writers. 
William and Mary Howitt naturally belong to it ; and if 
another were to be named of the present time, it would be 
Thomas Miller. But no one has done so much, systemati- 
cally and extensively, to make us familiar with the rural pop- 
ulation both of our own country and of Germany, as Mr. 
Howitt. 

In 1832, Mr. Howitt produced the " Book of the Sea- 
sons," a volume the publication of which was attended by a 
circumstance curious in itself, and which should teach 
young authors not to be discouraged by the opinions of pub- 
lishers. The " Book of the Seasons" was offered to four 
of the principal publishing houses, and rejected by them ; 
till the author, in disgust, told the gentleman in whose 
hands it was left, to tie a stone to the MS., and fling it over 
London Bridge. At length Colburn and Bentley took it : 
the press with one simultaneous cheer of approbation salut- 
ed its appearance ; it has since gone through seven large 
editions. 

In 1884, Mr. Howitt published a work of a very differ- 
ent description, the " History of Priestcraft," which ran 
through six or seven editions, some of them of 3000 copies 
each. The work, of course, excited as much reprehension 
from one party as applause from another; but the readers of 
the " Book of the Seasons," which is full of kindly and 
gentle feelings, could not comprehend how the same spirit 
could produce both these works. The union is, neverthe- 
less, perfectly compatible It should be recollected that Mr. 
Howitt was born and educated a Quaker, and he had im- 
bued himself with the writings and spirit of the first Quak- 
ers, who were a sturdy race, and suffered much persecu- 
tion from the Established Church. 

In 1835, our author published " Pantika, or Traditions of 
the most Ancient Times," a work of imagination, certainly 
the most ambitious, and not the least successful, though the 
least popular of all Mr. Howitt's many admirable produc- 

6* 



114 WILLIAM AND MARY HOVVITT. 

tions. Bat its design, its materials, and execution, are alto- 
gether so different from every other work of the Howitts, 
that its claims will be more appropriately considered under 
the head of " Mrs. Shelley, and the imaginative romance 
writers," in the present work. 

The publication of the " History of Priestcraft" may be 
said to have driven our author from Nottingham. Till 
then he lived in great privacy ; but this volume dis- 
covered to his townsmen that he possessed political opin- 
ions. He appeared then as the advocate of popular rights, 
and in that town there is a considerable portion of the pop- 
ulation which has always been greatly in want of zealous 
and able leaders. These seized on Mr. Howitt as a cham- 
pion unexpectedly found. He was in a manner forced at 
once, and contrary to his habits and inclination, into public 
life. He was called upon to arrange and address public 
meetings. He was made an alderman of the borough, and 
looked to as the advocate of all popular measures. It was 
found that, although unused to public speaking, he possess- 
ed a vehement eloquence which excited his hearers to en- 
thusiasm, and carried them according to his will. A speech 
of his in the Town Hall, on some Irish question, in which 
he introduced some remarks on O'Connell, so agitated his 
hearers, that they simultaneously announced their determi- 
nation to invite O'Connell to a public dinner, which they 
forthwith did. It was hoped by the people of Nottingham 
that they had found a man amply capable and willing to 
advocate their interests; but this was not the life which 
Mr. Howitt had marked out for himself. No sphere could 
have afforded a greater opportunity of doing good to his 
fellow-men than the one he now occupied, but to do that it 
required an independent fortune. Mr. Howitt's was limit- 
ed ; and finding his time and energies wholly absorbed by 
extraneous circumstances, he deemed it his duty to his chil- 
dren to withdraw to a more secluded place of residence. 
He therefore removed to Esher, in Surrey, a place which 
gave him the fullest retirement, in a beautiful country, while 
it afforded a ready communication with the metropolis. 
There he resided some years. 

Before leaving Nottingham, his fellow-townsmen, in a 
very numerous public meeting, voted him a silver inkstand, 
as an appropriate testimony of their esteem; and, before set- 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. I 15 

' tling at Esher, he and Mrs. Howitt made another excursion 
, into the North of Enghuid, Scotland, and the Western Isles, 
I traversing the most interesting portions of their journey 
: again on foot. They spent a short time with Mr. Words- 
worth and his family at Rydal, and in Edinhurgh made the 
personal acquaintance of most of the literary and eminent 
characters there. Mr. Howitt also attended a dinner given 
by the city of Edinburgh to the poet Campbell, and beincp 
requested to give as a toast " the English poets, Wordsworth, 
Southey, and Moore," he took the opportunity of pressino- 
on the attention of that brilliant company, that if toasting 
poets did them honour, the true way to serve them was to 
secure them their " copy-right." 

During Mr. Howitt's residence at Esher, he published 
the " Rural Life of England," having previously traversed 
the country literally from the Land's End to the Scottish 
borders, to make himself intimately acquainted with the 
manners and mode of life of the rural population. The 
work is eminently popular; and while it is full of the kind- 
ly and cheerful spirit of the " Book ofthe Seasons," has yet 
higher claims to public fiivour even than that most pleasant 
work, from the more exalted nature of its subject, and the 
enlightened and philosophical views which it takes of 
society generally. 

In' 18:58, Mr. Howitt published a work entitled " Col- 
onization and Christianity," a popular history of the treat- 
ment of the natives by the Europeans in all their colonies ; 
a work which proves that the writer's philanthropic sympathy 
is not confined to any race or nation, and unfolds a dark 
chnjiter in the history of human nature, and which could 
hardly fail to produce the most extensive and beneficial ef- 
fects. In fact, the reading of this volume led Mr. Joseph 
Pease, Jim., immediately to establish "The British India 
Society," in which the zealous exertions of Mr. Pease have 
mainly contributed to the adoption of a new policy by the 
East India Company, pregnant with the most important ben- 
efits to this country ; to the liberation of all their slaves, no 
less than tfri millions in number, and to the cultivation of 
cotton, sugar, and other tropical articles for our market, by 
which, if continued, not only will the poor population of 
India be employed, but the manufacturing millions of our 
own country too, by the constant demand for our manufac- 



116 WILLIAM AND MARY HOVVITT. 

tured goods ; of which every year already brings the most 
striking and cheering evidences. 

Soon after this, Mr. Howitt published a little book, which 
has gladdened many a fireside, called " The Boys' Country 
Book," a genuine life of a country boy — being evidently his 
own life. The Boys' Country Book was followed by " Vis- 
its to Remarkable Places, Old Halls, Battle Fields, and 
Scenes illustrative of striking Passages in English History 
and Poetry " This book was received with enthusiasm ; 
and though an expensive work, had a large sale, and was 
followed by a second volume. These works soon found a 
host of imitators, and have had the beneficial effect of re- 
minding the public of the valuable stores of historic and pc- 
etic interest scattered over the whole face of our noble coun- 
try. Mrs. Howitt's attention had for years been turned to 
works for the young. They were written for the amusement 
and benefit of her own children, and being tested by the ac- 
tual approbation of this little domestic auditory, were after- 
wards published and received with equal applause by the 
young wherever the English language extends. Up to this 
period she had issued; — The Sketches of natural History. 
— Tales in Verse ; and Tales in Prose.— Birds and Flowers. 
— Hymns and Fireside Verses.* The popularity of these 
works induced a publisher (Mr. Tegg) to propose to Mrs. 
Howitt to write for him a series of "Talcs for the People 
and their Children ;" of which ten volumes have already ap- 
peared, namely ; — 1. Strive and Thrive, — 2. Hope on, 
Hope ever. — 3. Sowing and Reaping. — 4. Who shall be 
Greatest? — 5. Which is the Wiser ? — 6. Little Coin much 
Care. — 7. Work and Wages. — ^. Alice Franklin. — 9. 
Love and Money. These volumes have never been intro- 
duced to the public by reviews, and it seems to be a system 
of Mr. Tegg's never to send copies to reviews; nevertheless 
they have had a vast circulation, and are scattered all over 
America in sixpenny reprints. They are in themselves a 
little juvenile library of the most interesting narratives, full 
of goodness of heart, and sincere moral principles. Trans- 
lations of " Birds and Flowers," are in progress both in 
German and Polish, and all the works of William and Mary 

* We must not allow ourselves to be so overcome by a sense of tlie iibuntbince of llic 
Hewitts', as to omit cur tribute. to the beiiuty of Mary Kowitt's pooticiil procluclitns, 
which are not, wo tliink, sufficieiiily estimated in tliis article — Ed. 



WILLIAM AND MAUY HOWITT. 117 

Howitt are immediately reprinted and extensively circulated 
in America. 

Having resided about three years at Eslier, Mr. and Mrs. 
Howitt quited England for a sojourn in Germany. They 
had lor some time had their attention drawn to German 
literature; and the alleged advantages attending education 
in Germany, made them resolve to judge for themselves. 
Attracted by the beauty of the scenery, they took up their 
head-quarters at Heidelberg, where their children could 
steadily pursue their education. Thence, at different times, 
they visited nearly every part and every large city of Ger- 
many, assiduously exerting themselves by social intercourse 
with the people, as well as by study, to make themselves per- 
fectly familiar with the manners, spirit, and literature of that 
great and varied nation. During upwards of three years 
thus spent, with the exception of Mrs. Howitt's continuing 
the series of " Tales for the People," and editing " Fisher's 
Drawing-Room Scrap-Book, " which was put into her hands 
on the decease of L. E. L., English literature was now 
abandoned for the continuous study of the German. The 
result on Mr. Howitt's part was the translation of a work 
written expressly for him, " The Student-Life of Germany," 
containing the most famous songs and music of the German 
students. This volume, which was vehemently attacked by 
some of our own newspapers, nevertheless received from the 
principal journals of Germany, the highest testimonies of ac- 
curacy and mastership of translation, and led to numerous 
applications on the part of German publishers for transla- 
tions of works into English, as books for the use of stu- 
dents of English, one only of which, however, Mr. Howitt 
found time to undertake, — the fanciful story of Peter Schle- 
mill, since published by Schrag of Nurnberg. After three 
years' abode and observation, Mr. Howitt published his 
" Social and Rural Life of Germany," which was at once 
well received here, and reprinted in Germany with the as- 
sertion of the " Allgemeine Zeitung," the first critical jour- 
nal of Germany, of its being the most accurate account of 
that country ever written by a foreigner. 

Perhaps, however, as concerns the English public, the 
most important consequences of Mr. and Mrs. Howitt's so- 
journ in Germany is, that they had their attention turned to 
the language and literature of the North of Europe. They 
had the pleasure of becoming intimately acquainted with an 



118 "WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 

excellent and highly-accomplished English family who had 
spent many years in Sweden, and were enthusiastic lovers 
of its literature. With them they immediately commenced 
the study of Swedish, and were so much charmed with its 
affinity, both in form and spirit to the English, that they pur- 
sued it with great avidity. The first results have been the 
introduction of the prose tales of Frederika Bremer, by Mrs. 
Howitt, to our knowledge; — a new era in our reading world. 
These charming works, so distinguished by their natural 
domestic interest, their faithful delineations, their true 
spirit of kindliness, poetical feeling, good sense, and domes- 
tic harmony and affection, have produced a sensation une- 
qualled as a series since the issue of the Waverley novels, 
and in cheap reprints have been circulated through every 
class and corner of America. The rapidity with which, 
from various circumstances, it has been requisite to produce 
these translations, has, we understand, made it necessary, 
though appearing as a lady's work entirely in Mrs. Howitt's 
name, that both Mr. and Mrs. Howitt should latterly unite 
all their activity in translating, correcting, and passing ihem 
through the press. 

The Howitts are enthusiastic lovers of their literary 
pursuits, and anxious to educate their children in the best 
possible manner, and therefore live a retired and domestic 
life. Though belonging to the Society of Friends, and at- 
tached to its great principles of civil, moral, and religious 
liberty, they have long ago abandoned its peculiarities ; and 
in manners, dress, and language, belong only to the world. 
For the honour of literature we may safely say, that amortgtt 
the many consolatory proofs in modern times of how much 
literature may contribute to the happiness of life, the case of 
the Howitts is one of the most striking. The love of litera- 
ture was the origin of their acquaintance, its pursuit has 
been the hand-in-hand bond of the most perfect happiness of 
a long married life; and we may further add, for the hon- 
our of womanhood, that while our authoress sends forth her 
delightful works in unbroken succession, to the four quar- 
ters of the globe, William Howitt has been heard to declare 
that he will challenge any woman, be she who she may, who 
never wrote a line, to match his good woman in the able 
management of a large household, at the same time that she 
fills her own little world of home with the brightness of her 
own heart and spirit. 



DR. PUSEY. 



" The angels, in like manner, can utter in a few words singular the things which 
are written in a vulunie of any book, and can express such things, or every word, as 
elevate its meaning to interior wisdom ; for their speech is such, that it is consonant 
with aftectioiis, and every word with ideas. Expressions are also varied, by an in- 
finity of methods, according to the series of the things which are in a complex in the 
thought." 

SwEDENBORG, " Concerning the Wisdom of the Angels of Heaven." 

In the vigorous and very ominous contest which has for 
a considerable time been raging between different sections 
of the Established Church, it will form no part of this brief 
notice to engage, on either side. A work like the present 
cannot, it must be obvious, afford space for lengthy and com- 
plex disquisition on any subject; and least of all would its 
design accord with controversies which are usually, in them- 
selves, endless, whether on matters of religion, science, or po- 
litics. A few broad statements of leading principles and facts 
are all that will be attempted — intended solely for the benefit 
of those who do not know much of the subject, and have 
not time to study the "Tracts," but who wish for some con- 
cise information. 

This necessary avoidance of theological conflicts and the 
inadmissibility of polemical treatises, must also prevent our 
taking into the present paper some account of Dr. Chalmers, 
the leader of the High Church party in the Presbyterian, as 
Dr. Pusey is in the Episcopal section of the Protestant 
Church in this kingdom ; and must equally prevent any view 
of the natural opposites of both these leaders in their theo- 
logical aspects ; otherwise our design must have included 
the lectures of W. J. Fox, and those of the late Dr. Chan- 
ning, whose transatlantic birth has not precluded his influ- 
ence among ourselves. Our purpose, however, being limited 
to the consideration of certain novel doctrines which have 
been designated after the name of their originator, the fol- 
lowinff remarks are offered in elucidation. 



120 DR. PUSKY. 

Dr. Pusey is the representative of that class of English- 
men, who, looking with reprehension and alarm npon the 
changes in the ecclesiastical and political system of our 
country which have slowly but constantly gained ground 
during the lapse of the last fifteen years, have ranged them- 
selves under the freshly emblazoned banners and newly illu- 
minated altars of the Church, have unsheathed the sword of 
Faith and new interpretation, earnest to restore the ancient 
constitution in Church and State ; to stem the advancing 
tide of modern opinion and endeavour ; to retain the strong- 
hold of the Divine Right of Kings and the Spiritual Supre- 
macy of the Priesthood, and from this detached ground to 
say to the rising waves, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
farther," and to the troubled waters, "Peace, — be still." 

The first note of alarm was sounded to this class when, 
fifteen years ago, the Repeal of the Test and Corporation 
Act passed the legislature. This measure (to use the words 
of a distinguished member of their own body, Mr. Palmer) 
was, in their eyes, a " cutting away from the Church of 
England of one of its ancient bulwarks, and evidencing a 
disposition to make concessions to the clamour of its ene- 
mies." In the next year, called by the same authority " the 
fatal year lt?29," they saw the admission of Catholics to 
posts of trust and responsibility, and to a share in the legis- 
lation. The feelings which animated them now, may be un- 
derstood from the fact that his part in the transaction cost 
Sir Robert Peel his seat in the University of Oxford, and 
from the language of the same authority we have already 
quoted, who described the Emancipation Act as " a mea- 
sure which scattered to the winds public principle, public 
morality, public confidence, and dispersed a party, which, 
had it possessed courage to act according to its old and popu- 
lar principles, and to act on them with manly energy, would 
have stemmed the torrent of revolution and averted the aw- 
ful crisis which was at hand." Such was the state of ap- 
palled apprehension on which the tocsin of revolution in 
France struck like an electric shock in 1830, and on which 
the echoes reverberated nearer and nearer thunders through 
the reform agitation in England. " The Tory aristocracy," 
says Mr. Palmer again, " which had forsaken the Church in 
yielding Emancipation, were now hurled from their political 
ascendency, and the Retorsi Bill of 1S3I — a just retribu- 



DR. PUSEY. 121 

tioii for their offence — made for the time the democratic 
principle all powerful in the state." Events glided on. 
The claims of the Dissenters were loudly urged — a seve- 
rance of Church and State was demanded — ten Irish Bishop- 
rics were suppressed — even Chuch Rates were in many 
quarters successfully resisted — and Church Reform was 
actually called for, much in the same manner in which Par- 
liamentary Reform had been demanded a year or two before ! 
Struck by these signs of the times, by the increase of dis- 
sent, the avowedly low views of church authority entertained 
by a majority of the clergy and nearly the entire body of the 
laity, the extreme laxity of discipline and great diversity of 
doctrine prevailing in the Church, and the tendency to fur- 
ther innovation manifesting itself in many, and those not 
unimportant quarters, a few clergymen, chiefly residing at 
Oxford and members of the University, formed themselves 
into an association under the title of" Friends of the Church." 
At the head of these was Dr. Pusey. 

Edward Bouverie Pusey is the second son of the late 
Hon. Philip Pusey, and grandson of the Earl of Radnor. 
His father assumed the name of Pusey on becoming the 
possessor of Pusey, in the county of Berks, an estate held 
by that family from a period considerably anterior to the 
Norman conquest, and held under a grant from Canute by 
cornage, or the service of a horn. The Pusey horn is well 
known to antiquaries. Dr. Pusey was born in 1800, and en- 
tered the University of Oxford in 1818, as a gentleman 
commoner of Christ Church. His name appears in the first 
class in 1S22. Shortly afterwards he became a fellow of 
Oriel College ; in 1824, he obtained the prize for the Latin 
essay, and in 1828, he became Regius Professor of Heiirew 
and Canon of Christ Church. In this year he married a 
lady, since deceased. In 1825 he had taken the degree of 
M. A., and at the usual periods subseqently took those of 
B. D. and D. D. Dr. Pusey is therefore in his 44th year. 
He is somewhat under the middle size, pale, and of a medi- 
tative and intellectual countenance. As a preacher, he is 
calm, logical, and persuasive, and tiiere is an air of sincerity 
abo\U every word which he utters which is never without its 
effect. His theological views were at one time supposed to 
be verging towards those of the German theologians, but 
they underwent a very decided change before the year 1833, 



122 DR. PUSEY. 

when he became one of the founders of the association, out 
of which sprang the " Tracts for the Times." 

The first object of this association was to stir up clergy 
and laity to activity and to more zeal for the office and 
authority of the Church, and this was done by correspond- 
ence, addresses, associations and similar means, with very 
satisfactory results. But inasmuch as it was by the press 
that opposite principles had been most successfully inculcat- 
ed, so the leading members of that society determined to 
issue some short publications adapted, as they considered, to 
the exigencies of the limes. These publications were not 
sent forth with any corporate authority. The writers spoke 
only their own individual opinions, and no system of revi- 
sion, though often recommended, was ever adopted. The 
title given to them was " Tracts for the Times, by members 
of the University of Oxford." Some were addressed espe- 
cially to the clergy, and headed " ad clcruni," others to the 
laity, headed '' ad populum," others to both. 

The tenets maintained by the I'ract writers were chiefly 
as follows. They asserted the threefold order of ministry, 
Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, as essential to an apostolic 
church. They claimed a personal, not a merely official de- 
scent from the Apostles, i. e., they declared that not only had 
the Church ever maintained the three orders, but that an un- 
broken succession of individuals canonically ordained was 
enjoyed by the Church, and essential to her existence ; in 
short, that without this there could be no Church at all. 
They held the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, of sacra- 
mental absolution, and of a real, in contradistinction to a 
figurative or symbolical. Presence in the Eucharist. They 
maintained the duty of fasting, of ritual obedience, and of 
communion with the Apostolic Church, declaring all Dis- 
senters, and, as a necessary consequence, the members of the 
Church of Scotland, and all churches not episcopal, to be 
members of no church at all. They denied the validity of 
Lay-baptism ; they threw out hints from time to time, which 
evidenced an attachment to the theological system support- 
ed by the non-juring divines in the days of James II. ; and 
the grand protestant principle as established by Luther — the 
right of private interpretation of Holy Scripture — they 
denied. 

A facetious, but somewhat profane Letter, shortly ap- 



DR. PUSEY. 123 

■'peared, purporting to be " an Epistle from the Pope to 
certain members of the University of Oxford," and was ex- 
tensively circulated. Dr. Pusey replied to this highly re- 
prehensible Pretender, in a grave and earnest tone, depre- 
cating a light and irreligious spirit on a topic of so great 

(magnitude and importance. 

s The Evangelical party in the Church next objected to 

•certain expressions used in the " Tracts," such as " convey- 
ing the sacrifice to the people " — " entrusted with the keys 
of Heaven and Hell " — " entrusted with the awful and mys- 

'terious gift of making the bread and icinc, Christ's body 
and blood" — all which expressions they considered might 

■perhaps be understood in rather a Romanizing way. " The 
Record," a religious newspaper, conducted by gentlemen 

'of Presbyterian tenets, but circulating chiefly among 
churchmen of Calvinistic doctrine, directly accused the 
Tract writers as Jesuits, and covert Papists. The conduct 
of the Bishops, who were supposed to favour Dr. Pusey, 
was watched, their dinner-parties noted, and the disposal of 

, their patronage tartly commented on. The inferior clergy 

'were subjected to espionage. If a priest or deacon was seen 
at a ball or concert, his name was sure to appear in the 

inext week's "Record" as a musical or a dancing clergyman, 
and a Puseyite ; for the ierm " Puseyite" originated with 

-this journal. The Tracts meanwhile went steadily on, 

'never replying nor recriminating, but continuing to put 
forth new and more startling deviations from the received 

■theology of the day. 

£ In 1836, a new species of hostility commenced, in which 

;the Puseyite party were the assailant. Dr. Hampden, canon 

'of Christ Church, and Principal of St. Mary Hall, was ap- 
pointed Regius Professor of Divinity. The admirable per- 
sonal qualities, and the splendid abilities of Dr. Hampden, 
made the man both admired and esteemed ; but he had 

'preached a course of Bampton Lectures which were consid- 
ered " rationalistic" — or tending to a daring use of the ra- 
tional faculty, and had published a pamphlet ; in which, says 

'Mr. Palmer, "the boldest latitudinarianism was openly 
avowed, and Socinians were placed on a level with all other 
Christians !" His appointment was therefore vigorously op- 
posed by the high Church party ; but the opposition being 

•'fruitless, an agitation was commenced chiefly by the Tract 



I'ZA DR. PUSEY. 

writers, and a formal censure of the University on Dr. 
Hampden was passed by an overwhelming majority in Con- 
vocation. By this censure, the Margaret Professor of Di- 
vinity was substituted for the Regius Professor, and the 
attendance of the under graduates on the latter dispensed 
with. 

Periodicals were now started with the avowed object of 
opposing the " Tracts ;" and one, " The Church of Eng- 
land Quarterly Review," was alluded to in the House of 
Commons, and had two articles, which were marked by ve- 
hement invective, quoted in " The Times.'' That paper, 
however, subsequently discovering certain inaccuracies, re- 
pudiated the articles in question. Thus attacked, the Oxford 
party resolved to have an organ of their own ; and the 
" British Critic," being at that moment thrown into the 
market. Dr. Pusey became the purchaser, and placed in the 
post of editor, Mr. Newman, the most learned, the most 
astute, and the most practised in controversy of all concerned 
in the tracts. At the same time, Professor Sewell took up 
their cause in the Quarterly Review. 

The singular book called " Fronde's Remains," edited 
by Mr. Newman, has been excused by moderate writers as 
having been the result of prolonged bad health ; but as its 
editor gravely answered in print, that " Mr. Froude was not 
a man who said any thing at random," the supposition, one 
would think, can scarcely be justified. The author, among 
many other similar expressions, spoke of himself and his co- 
adjutors as organizing " a conspiracy for the unprotcstanti- 
zinff of the Church;" — he called the Reformation "A limb 
badly set, which required to be broken again ;" and wondered j 
that " * * * did not get on faster to hate the reformers." I 

The first learned opposition which the Tractarians had 
to encounter was in the work of Dr. Mcllvaine, Bishop of \ 
Vermont, in America. In the same year, 1840, the " Church '< 
of England Quarterly" passed into other management, and i 
maintained a firm, consistent opposition to the same writers, ] 
uniformly, however, treating them as gentlemen, scholars, ' 
and Christians. In April, 1843, it was, however, again 1 
placed under its former conductors. j 

Meanwhile the Tracts themselves had been silenced, the j 
Bishop of Oxford having recommended their cessation, and | 
been promptly obeyed. The last of the series, the celebra- ; 



r»R. PUSEY. 



125 



ted No. 90,* which was avowed by Mr. Newman, was point- 
edly condemned by many of the Bishops, and a note of 
censure passed on it by the Hebdomadal Board. Books, 
sermons, reviews, charges, memoirs from the Puseyite party, 
have since manifested their determination to continue to be 
heard through the press. 

The excitement was increased by the charge of the 
Bishop of London in 1842, in which he touched on some 
points of ritual observance, apparently favouring the Pusey- 
ites. A professor of poetry, who never published a single 
poetical work, has been elected at Oxford, " because he was 
not a Puseyite." Mr. Gladstone's two works, " On the Re- 
lation of the Church to tlie State," and " Church Principles," 
were attacked as Puseyite. and Mr. Christmas's treatise on 
the " Discipline of the Anglican Church," though touching 
on no disputed point of doctrine, afforded matter of criticism 
for six weeks to a Presbyterian journal on the same ground. 
Old Divinity was now remembered with affection. Societies 
for the publication of neglected old divinity have been estab- 
lished, and, also, rival societies of Anglo-Catholic theology. 
lAs a good induence, may be nttticed the impulse to correct 
Gothic Architecture, to the employment of art in the embel- 
jlishment of churches, and the improvement of the musical 
part of the service. As evidences of dissension, we observe, 
lone rector advertising for a curate, with — " No Puseyite 
;need apply ;" — another, " No Oxford m,an will be accepted ;" 
on the other h ind, a vicar " wants an assistant of sound 
Anglican views, who is untainted with Erastianism, and en- 
ilertains no objection to the daily service, the weekly offer- 
itory, and to preaching in a surplice !" Thus, are the very 
bowels of Mother Church inflamed and convulsed. 
) The last public act of Dr. Pusey was the delivery of a 
sermon before the University, in which he was accused of 
ladvancing the doctrine of transubstantiation. Judges ap- 
pointed by the University have censured him ; passed a 
/sentence of suspension on him, and condemned the sermon 
as heretical ; but his friends maintain, that by not specifying 
i'their ground-;, the judges have laid themselves open to the 
charges of unfairness and severity. It is much to be feared 
elhat these doings closely resemble many things which may 

f * The tract called " One Tract More," printoil suhseriucntly to No. 90, w;i3 writ- 
"ten by a weU-known poet, nwl M. P. 



126 DR. PUSEY. 

be discovered as far back as the times of Abailard and St. 
Bernard. 

It is said that Dr. Pusey is about to quit Oxford, and to 
take up his residence at Leeds, where a superb church is in 
process of erection for his ministry. 



G. P. R. JAMES, — MRS. GORE, — CAPTAIN 
MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 



" And what o/this new book, that tlie whole world make such a rout about ?" 

Sterne. 

" How deliglitful ! To cut open the leaves, to inhale the fragrance of the scarcely j 
dry paper, to examine the type, to see wlio is the printer, to launch out into regions 
of thought and invention, (never trod till now,) and to explore characters, (that never 
mot a human eye before,) this is a luxury worth sacrificing a dinner-party, or a few 
hours of a spare morning to. If we cannot write ourselves, we become, by busying 
ourselves about it, a kind of accessaries after the fact." — Hazlitt. 

" No sooner did the Housekeeper see them than she ran out of the room in great 
haste, and immediately returned with a pot of lioly water and a bunch of hyssop, and 
said, ' .Signer Licentiate, take this and sprinkle the room, lest some enchanter, of the 
many these books abound with, should enchant us, in revenge for what we intend to 
do in banishing them out of the world !' The Priest smiled at the Housekeeper's 
simplicity, and ordered the Barber to reach him the books, one by one, that they might 
see what they treated of; for, perhaps they might find some that did not deserve to be 
chastised by fire." — Don Quixote. 

Prose fiction has acquired a more respectable status 
within the last half century than it held at any previous 
period in English literature. Very grave people, who set up 
to be thought wiser than their neighbours, are no longer 
ashamed to be caught reading a novel. The reason of this 
is plain enough. It is not that your conventional reader has 
abated a jot of his dignity, or relaxed a single prejudice in 
favour of " light reading," but that the novel itself has un- 
dergone a complete revolution. It is no longer a mere fantasy 
of the imagination, a dreamy pageant of unintelligible senti- 
ments and impossible incidents; but a sensible book, insinu- 
ating in an exceedingly agreeable form — ^just as cunning 
physicians insinuate nauseous drugs in sweet disguises — a 
great deal of useful knowledge, historical, social, and moral. 
Most people are too lazy to go to the spring-head, and are 
well content to drink from any of the numerous little rills 
that happen to ripple close at hand ; and thus, by degrees, 
'the whole surface becomes fertilized after a fashion, and by 



123 G. p. R. JAME3, MRS. GORE, 

a remarkably easy and unconscious process. Formerly a 
novel was a laborious pretext for saying a wonderful variety 
of fiue silly things ; now, it is really a channel for conveying 
actual information, the direct result of observation and re- 
search, put together with more or less artistic ingenuity, but 
always keeping in view the responsibility due to the living 
humanity from which it professes to be drawn. Genteel 
amenities and pathetic bombast are gone out ; and even the 
most exquisite universalities of the old school have been long 
since shot with the immense mass of rubbish under which 
they were buried. Crebillon himself slumbers in the dust 
of the well-stocked library, while there is no end to the new 
editions of Scott. 

This elevation of prose fiction to a higher rank, and the 
extension of the sphere of its popularity, may be at once re- 
ferred to the practical nature of the materials with which it 
deals, and the sagacity with which they are selected and 
employed. What Aristotle says of poetry in general may be 
applied with peculiar force to this particular form of narra- 
tive — that it is more philosophical than history ; for while 
the latter is engaged with literal details of particular facts, 
which often outrage general probability and never illustrate 
general principles, the former generalizes throughout, and 
by tracing in natural sequence a course of causes and effects 
which would, in all probability, have succeeded each other 
in the same order, under similar circumstances, in real life, 
it exhibits a more comprehensive picture of human nature, 
and conducts us upon the whole to a profounder moral. If 
the flippant observation be true, that History is Philosophy 
teaching by example, then it must be admitted that she 
sometimes teaches by very bad examples ; but when she 
condescends to teach through the medium of fiction, she i 
certainly has no excuse for not selecting the best. 

The attempt to establish a sort of junction between his- 
tory and romance — the Amandas and the Marguerites of 
Valois, the half-fabulous Rolands and the veritable Richards, 
— was a lucky conception. W'e have not the least notion to. 
whom the honour of having originated the historical novel 
fairly belongs Certainly not to Scott, to whom it is so 
commonly attributed. Miss Lee was beforehand with him, 
and Miss Porter, and twenty others — to say nothing of De 
Foe, who seems to have given a broa 1 hint of the practica- 



CAPT. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 129 

bility of such a project in two or three of his inimitable fact- 
fiction memoirs. We suspect that the idea of the historical 
novel grew up slowly, that nobody had the courage to make 
so free with history all at once, and that it became developed 
at last only by the sheer necessity of devising something 
new, consequent upon the exhaustion of every existing mode 
of liction. The germ of this brave conception, if we were 
disposed to pursue the inquiry in a learned spirit, might, 
perhaps, be found in the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, which 
dates so far back as the fourth century, and which is in some 
sort historical, since it presents an accurate and curious 
picture of the customs of ancient Egypt.* But we have no 
occasion to travel into such remote paths of investigation. — 
With Froissart and Monstrelet before us, the " Helden 
Bach," the " Nibelungen Lied," the " Chronicles of the 
Cid," and the old Spanish and French romances, we can be 
at no loss to discover how the historical novel gradually put 
forth its strength and enlarged its stature, until in course of 
time it grew to its present height and importance. The 
poetical spirit in which the chronicle writers treat the best 
established historical reputations, the atmosphere of imagina- 
tion they throw round the most ordinary facts, and the skill 
with which they relate their narratives, mingling the dra- 
matic tact of the raconteur witli the sobriety of the historian, 
may be regarded as having accomplished the first grand ad- 
vance towards the disputed boundary. The subsequent 
progress was easy enough ; nor can it be a matter of much 
surprise, when once the invasion was fairly eifected, to find 
the two hitherto distinct races, mixed and confounded to- 
gether on the frontier of the two hitherto hostile territories. 
)If there be romance writers who have taken upon themselves 
the functions of history, it cannot be denied, on the other 
hand, that there are historians who have not hesitated to 
appear in the masquerade of romance. 

I Of all historical novelists, Scott justly occupies the first 
iplace. If he did not create that kind of composition, he 
;was the first who brought it into general favour. The secret 
^ivvas no sooner unfolded, by which the annals of nations 
bcould thus be rendered tributary to the most fascinating 

* Tlie " Cyropaedia" of Xenophon has a still earlier claim ; but either of these 
il'.erivatioiis makes tlie historical tiction coincident with the origin of prose romance. 
vlad.une de Genlis, in her " Memoires," claims precedence of Scott, who she says 
vas her imitator. — Ed. 



130 G. p. R. JAMES, MRS. GORE, 

shapes of romance, than liundreds of imitators started up. 
Every body thought he could write an historical novel, and 
accordingly there was not a nook or corner of history that 
was not ransacked for materials. Nor was this excitement 
confined merely to England. It rapidly spread over every 
part of the civilized world, and seized upon every language 
that had a printing-press to give utterance to its inspirations. 
Even bleak and uncultivated Norway is warmed into en- 
thusiasm by the genius of Ingemann, and Russia herself, 
whose national literature is scarcely half a century old, 
boasts of her own especial Walter Scott, with some dozen 
of followers trooping at his heels. 

It is not too much to say that the most successful of 
those who have trodden the same track in England, is G. 
P. R. James.* — There is no writer, of his particular class, 
now living, so familiar to the public at large ; not one who has 
drawn so extensively upon sources not always accessible to the 
readers of novels ; not one who has laboured with such unre- 
mitting diligence, and such uniform popularity. If he has 
never greatly succeeded, we know no instance in which he 
has greatly failed. 

The voluminousness — we choose the word advisedly for 
the 0<icasion — of Mr. James's writings, is the idea instantly 
suggested to the mind upon the bare mention of his name. 
The first thing you think of is the enormous quantity of 
books he has written. You fancy a man seated at a table 
in the centre of a commodious librSry, with the gift of per- 
petual motion in his wrist, as incapable of fatigue in brains 
or fingers as the steam-apparatus that hatches eggs, and pos- 
sessed with a terrible determination of blood to the head — j 
relieving itself instinctively by a fearful resoluti(ni to write | 
on — on — on — during sectila scculoriim, at all hazards to 
gods, men, and columns, " till the great globe itself," &c. 
Fifty other strange notions of a like bewildering kind rise 
up and surround this image of an inexhaustible author ; 
and the more you attempt to close with the phenomenon, 
the more incomprehensible it becomes, like a dim perplex- 
ing figure in a dream. 

We have not the means of verifying the number of Mr. 

* Mr. James may be, immevically, tlie most popul-irof all tlie historical romancists, 
but we are far from considering him a» the equal of the nnthor of "Rienzi" und th'' 
" Last Days of Pompeii."— F.d. 



CAPT. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 131 

James's publications, nor tlie period within which they were 
produced. But, we believe, we are sufficiently accurate for 
general purposes in saying that he commenced his career 
about fitteen years ago, and that from that time to tlie pres- 
ent, he has published nearly two novels, or histories, annu- 
ally. In a catalogue of works pirated from English authors 
by Baudry of Paris, dated 1841, we find no less than twen- 
ty-one substantial three-volumed novels by Mr. James, which 
the worthy smuggler, having no duty to pay for copy-right, 
is enabled to offer to the travelling English, and the travelled 
French, at the small charge of five francs each work. Mr. 
James has suffered heavily by this nefarious system of liter- 
ary plunder; and to his inccssriiit exertions for the protec- 
tion of English copy-rights we are mainly indebted for the 
small amount of security we now enjoy through the vigilance 
of the custom-house officers. All that can be done in the 
absence of a law of international copy-right, is to prevent 
the importation of these swindling editions; and this, we 
believe, is now done as carefully as such an office can be 
expected to be fidfilled by the class of persons to whom it is 
unavoidably intrusted. 

The French catalogue to which we have referred, is of 
course a very imperfect guide to Mr. James's complete 
works; but it will help the imagination a little on the way. 
In addition to all these novels, there are yet to be piled up 
histories and biographies of every class and kind, so that by 
the time we shall have arrived at the top of the heap, we 
shall be well disposed to stop and vent our wonder in one 
long heave of respiration. If all these works were gathered 
together, and a scrivener employed to copy them, it would 
probably occupy him a longer period of fair average daily 
labour in the simple task of transcription than the author 
expended upon their composition. To those who know how 
much more rapidly the invention works than the hand.s — 
how immeasurably the brain outstrips the mechanical pro- 
cess of the pen — this assertion will neither be new nor sur- 
prising. Yet still there remains behind this problem,- — ■ 
how Mr. James, although he might compose faster than 
another person could copy, contrived both to compose and 
write so much within so short a period? But the problem 
is set at rest by the fact that Mr. James did not tvrite any 
of his work.''. Like Cobbett, he employs an amanuensis, 



132 G. p. n. JAMES, MRS. (70RE, 

and all this long and brilliant array of historical narratives 
with which the public have been so pleasantly entertained 
for such a series of years have been dictated by the author, 
while he was walking up and down his study, one after 
another, or, sometimes, possibly, two or three at a time ! 

The usages of authors are proverbially capricious. 
Cuvier, says "Punch," (and "Punch" is as good an au- 
thority in such matters as Bayle or Johnson,) used to dip his 
head and feet into cold water while he was preparing his great 
work, the " Regne Animal !" There is no reason on earth 
why Mr. James should not dictate his novels, if the habit 
suits and pleases him. But to one who is not in the habit 
of dictating novels, the process seems peculiarly unfavoura- 
ble to the due attainment of the end proposed. One can 
understand Cobbett's dictation — its uses and abuses. The 
dashing articles of the " Register" are distinguished by the 
heedless energy and volubility of impromptu. It is the very 
style adapted for quick popular effects — to be read on the 
sudden, and set the head whirling, and the hand aching for 
:i petition to sign, or a second Peterloo; just the sort of 
headlong accumulation of facts and accusations a popular 
leader, who thoroughly understood the elements he had to 
wield, and who possessed a genius capable of moulding them 
to his purpose, might pour out with the greatest imaginable 
triumph. All this is intelligible enough; but the applica- 
tion of the same method of composition to the machinery 
and conduct of a narrative romance is inexplicable. The 
necessity of carrying on the plot by constant references to 
past scenes, of anticipating events in some c^ses, and pre- 
paring for them in all; and of working up carefully and by 
reiterated touches in dfalogue and action, the delicate and 
shifting traits of character, so as to preserve the consistency 
and dramatic integrity of the general design ; these neces- 
sities, and many more which might be easily pointed out in 
the structure of a well-considered novel, would seem to ren- 
der it nearly impossible to deliver orally three volumes of 
such matter, so connected and continuous, so reticulated 
and arranged, so true to life, so varied, and so artistical, in 
form, movement, and treatment. It is almost impossible to 
imagine any man speaking a novel. Yet Mr. James con- 
stantly performs this curious feat — more curious to our appre- 
hension a hundred times than if he were to write his novels 
in his sleep. 



CAPT. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 1^3 

One obvious advantage of this improvisation is, that it 
has enabled the author to carry on his hibours with that mar- 
vellous celerity to which we are indebted for the amazing 
quantity. It is not likely that he could have produced so 
much in so short a period, had he been held in check by 
the slower process of pen and ink, with all its provoking 
suggestiveness, its eye-traps at every turn of a sentence, its 
awkward gaps, and hitches, and flaws of style, to the mend- 
ing of which thought and spirit are so frequently sacrificed. 
On the other hand, it may be reasonably doubted whether 
what might have been thus lost in quantity might not have 
been gained in quality. If he had written less he would 
have written better — there would have been more ultimate 
purpose in his writings, more condensation, vigour, and 
vitality. 

We are very far from thinking that quantity is an argu- 
ment, a priori, against the originality or strength of genius. 
It is a common notion to suppose that he who writes a great 
deal must necessarily dilute and weaken his resources; 
that writing upon a variety of subjects, it is impossible to 
write well upon any. This is a vulgar error of the most ig- 
norant kind. He who can write well upon only one subject, 
or whose capacity cannot accomplish more than a little upon 
any, is not very likely to be mistaken by the world for a 
genius. The greatness of the intellect consists as much in 
its fulness as its profundity. The most remarkable authors 
in all ages have been amongst the most prolific — instance, 
Chaucer, Voltaire, Dryden, Swift, Lope de Vega, Goethe, 
Scott, &c. But there is no universal dictum on the subject ; 
each case must be determined finally by the character of the 
productions themselves. Copiousness without power is 
mere mental imbecility — drivelling upon paper. 

It is not entirely, therefore, because Mr. James has writ- 
ten so much, that we think he might have done better had 
he written less. The manner of composition has had some- 
thing to do with it, and is mainly answerable for that uni- 
formity of style, that smooth onward flat over which the 
narrative rolls with such regularity, and that want of com- 
pactness in details, which, with all our admiration of the 
versatile talents of the author, we constantly feel in these 
very clever and very numerous novels. If he had not drawn 
so extensively upon history, and availed himself so largely 



134 a. p. R. JAMES, MRS. CORE, 

of characters whose lineaments were already familiar to 
the reader, these deficiencies would have been still more ap- 
parent. But, fortunately, the reader is enabled by his pre- 
vious knowledge to fill up many of the fiint and hasty out- 
lines of the author, an involuntary process which frequently 
atones for the short-comings of the fiction. 

The " fatal facility " of these novels must be apparent 
to the most superficial critic. It is impossible not to see 
that they have been hurried out pell-mell, with wonderful 
self-reliance and an almost constitutional contempt of sys- 
tem and responsibility. The fluency of the manner is not 
more palpable than the diffusiveness of the matter. The 
figures are in eternal motion ; the dialogue seems everlasting ; 
the descriptions have the breadth and incoherency and joy- 
ous flush of a stage diorama. The flurry of the incidents, 
the number of the characters, and the mass of subordinate 
details that stifle the main action, leave upon the memory a 
very confused sense of the particular merits or final aim of 
the story. Looking back upon the whole series, one is apt, 
from the homogeneity, or family-likeness, which pervades 
them, to mistake one for another, to run Darnley into Rich- 
elieu, or jumble up De L'Orme with DeLeon. This indis- 
tinctness arises from want of care and reflection in the pre- 
liminary settlement of a definite design. The novel seems 
to be begun and finished at a single heat, while the first 
thought was still fresh, and before time had been allowed 
to examine its capabilities, or shape it to an end. The con- 
sequences of this indiscretion rise up in judgment against 
the author in every page. There is no repose in the ac- 
tion, the portraiture, the embroidery, the scenery, to give 
leisure for the reader to take in the vital elements of the 
subject, or for the prominent personages to grow out into 
their full and natural proportions, and fix themselves calmly, 
but forcibly, upon his attention. 

Novels written upon this plan, or rather absence of plan, 
may be, as they are, admirable novels of costume ; they 
may even lay claim to the higher distinction of being capital 
illuminations, worthy of being let into the margin of his- 
tory ; but they must not be confounded with that class of 
historical or real-life novels in which all other considera- 
tions are subservient to the delineation of human nature. 
Fortunately these faults are not of a kind to mar very 



CAPT. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 105 

materially the pleasure of the bulk of novel-readers ; who, 
moreover, find too many sources of rational enjoyment in 
Mr. James's books not to be ready to compound all their sins 
of execution for their research and good sense — qualities so 
very rare in modern fictions. 

The historical research evinced in them is very con- 
siderable ; much more varied and extensive'than the author 
is ever likely to get credit for from the multitude. People 
are apt to take history in this shape for granted, without 
troubling themselves to look beyond the page before them 
for any iurther satisfaction of their curiosity. But if they 
were to follow out the suggestions of the narrative, to read 
up to the point of interest selected by the author, and to 
render themselves familiar with the life of the period, so as 
to be able to grasp it in all its aspects, they would begin to 
perceive that the works which they had been accustomed to 
regard merely as pleasant pastime, are frequently the fruits 
of severe investigation. The historical novelist must know 
a great deal more than he can exhibit in his novels ; he 
must have laid all the adjacent fields of inquiry under tri- 
bute, and mastered many details lying outside the topic, 
time, and country, he has chosen for his canvass. He can- 
not cram for the occasion. His collateral studies are as 
indispensable to his purpose as side-lights to the stage where 
the action would proceed in comparative darkness without 
them, although they are themselves always kept out of 
sight. 

In this respect Mr. James's novels are entitled to high 
commendation. They embrace a wide scope of reading, 
including nearly all ages and countries. Mr. James, in- 
deed, seems to have an especial genius for this discursive 
style of historical literature, and ranges with equal ease 
through the camp of Attila and the salons of Louis Q,ua- 
torze. In French history he is particularly at home ; and 
the whole vocabulary of chivalry is at his fingers' ends. To 
say that he has not sometimes adapted history to his own 
ends, would be to claim for him a merit he would scarcely 
set up for himself; but it may be safely asserted that of all 
historical novelists he is, beyond comparison, the most faith- 
ful and conscientious. He rarely exceeds the fair license 
of idealizing his materials ; he seldom makes his prominent 
historical personages responsible for public acts which he 



136 G. p. R. JAMES, MRS. GORE, 

cannot verify by authorities ; and he always presents them 
in as strict keeping with their admitted lineaments and char- 
acteristics, as can reasooably be expected under the new 
circumstances in which he finds it necessary to place them. 
For this reason we prefer his professed fictions to his pro- 
fessed biographies. They are closer to the mark of real 
life. They bring out the portrait more distinctly, sur- 
rounded by accessories that assist us to a more intimate 
view of its features. The habit of writing fiction has given 
a dangerous freedom to his manner of dealing with facts, 
which communicates its influence, more or less, to his 
purely historical labours. He works up a history in the 
picturesque spirit of a romance; and, although it is to the 
full as trustworthy as many much duller works, one cannot 
help being struck by its deficiencies in closeness of texture 
and weight of style. 

On the other hand, there seems to be no limit to his in- 
genuity, his faculty of getting up scenes and incidents, di- 
lemmas, artifices, contrc temps, battles, skirmishes, dis- 
guises, escapes, trials, combats, adventures. He accumu- 
lates names, dresses, implements of war and peace, official 
retinues, and the whole paraphernalia of customs and cos- 
tumes with astounding alacrity. He appears to have ex- 
hausted every imaginable " situation," and to have des- 
cribed every available article of attire on record. What he 
must have passed through — what triumphs he must have 
enjoyed — what exigencies he must have experienced — what 
love he must have suflfered — what a grand wardrobe his 
brain must be ! He has made some poetical and dramatic 
efforts ; but this irresistible tendency to pile up circumstantial 
particulars is fatal to those forms of art which demand in- 
tensity of passion. In stately narratives of chivalry and 
feudal grandeur, precision and reiteration are desirable 
rather than injurious — as we would have the most perfect 
accuracy and finish in a picture of ceremonials : and here 
Mr. James is supreme. One of his court romances is a 
book of brave sights and heraldic magnificence — it is the 
next thing to moving at our leisure through some superb 
and august procession. 

All his works, without distinction, are pervaded by moral 
feeling. There is a soul of true goodness in them — no 
maudlin affectation of virtue, but a manly rectitude of aim 



CAPT. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 137 

which they derive direct from the heart of the writer. His 
enthusiastic nature is visibly impressed upon his produc- 
tions. They are full of his own frank and generous im^ 
pulses — impulses so honourable to him in private life. Out 
of his books, there is no man more sincerely beloved. Had 
he not even been a distinguished author, his active sympathy 
in the cause of letters would have secured to him the at- 
tachment and respect of his contemporaries. 

If we had prescribed to ourselves in this desultory criti- 
cism any thing like a distinct plan, we should be terribly 
puzzled to assign a satisfactory reason for turning from Mr. 
James to Mrs. Gore. They are neither so like nor unlike 
as that one should be suggestive of the other. But we have 
no plan at all — beyond that of illustrating two or three 
popular phases of our prose fiction through two or three of 
its master-spirits; and the name of Mrs. Gore occurs to us 
as one of the most conspicuous. Within the last eight or 
nine years she has distanced nearly all her contemporaries 
by a rapid succession of some of the most brilliant novels in 
our language. 

The only element we can discover in common between 
Mr. James and Mrs. Gore, is that marvellous capacity of 
production by which they are both so well known in the 
circulating libraries. Wherever you see a board hung out at 
the door of a provincial or suburban library, containing a list 
of the last batch of new books, you may be quite certain of 
finding Mrs. Gore and Mr James prodigiously distinguished 
at the head of it in Brobdignagian letters. They are the 
Penates of the subscription shops. Their "last" is ever 
fresh and never wanting — when the season sets in, they set 
in, and as punctually as the booksellers' circular is pub- 
lished, they are published. Whatever irregularities may 
mark the appearances of Bulwer, or Horace Smith, or Mo- 
rier, none are perceptible in their appearances. The dead 
months of the year alone intervene — they are sure to come 
out with the earliest spring and winter advertisements, as 
the scribe of the mysterious " Evening paper " is sure, by 
some inexplicable means, to anticipate the merits of every 
one of Mr. Colburn's new publications. 

But accustomed as the public are to this constant and 
undeviating fertility, they can form, nevertheless, only an 
imperfect notion of the surprising industry of Mrs. Gore. 



138 G. p. R. JAMES, MRS. GORE, 

Apprehensive of risking her well-earned popularity by tax- 
ing the indulgence of her admirers too heavily, or, perhaps, 
of bringing herself within the lash of the old saw, that easy 
writing is not always the easiest reading, she has given 
many of her productions to the world anonymously. Many 
and many a time has some innocent country squire pon- 
dered over a new novel with most critical delight, and pro- 
phesied a famous literary destiny for its unknown author, 
little suspecting that it sprang from the well-known " Roman 
hand " to which he was indebted for a similar pleasure only 
a week or two before. Publishers have been sometimes 
compelled to run a race for priority in bringing out her 
works ; so that it has happened that two of her novels, ap- 
pearing in the same week, have been actually made to 
oppose each other in the market. Profound must be the 
arts of the bibliopolic craft by which a woman can thus be 
turned into her own rival. 

In addition to these original productions, acknowledged 
and unacknowledged, including all sorts of contributions to 
periodicals, Mrs. Gfore has executed some translations from 
the French, and given several small dramas to the stage; 
such as the " Maid of Croissy," " The Tale of a Tub," 
" The Sledge-Driver," fcc, all founded upon, if not taken 
from, French originals. She has also written a comedy 
called " The School for Coquettes," and others ; but they 
will scarcely increase her reputation. So fluent and spon- 
taneous a writer was not likely to restrain herself within 
dramatic forms, without losing much of her natural spirit ; 
and she is still less likely ever to subdue her teeming elo- 
quence down to the brevity of expression so essential to 
what may be properly called dramatic language. She might 
conceive a comedy admirably in three volumes, but it is 
nearly impossible she could write one in five acts. 

It is well known in the literary circles that Mrs. Gore 
is the author of that clever, but surpassingly impudent book, 
" Cecil." We believe she has never avowed it, and has 
rather, on the contrary, kept up a little mystification about 
it. But there is really no doubt on the subject. She wrote 
the story, and Mr. Beckford helped her to the learning. 
The public have been often perplexed by Mrs. Gore's 
Greek and Latin, which, although they were never paraded ^ 
so impertinently as the polyglot pretensions of Lady Mor- I 



t'Al'T. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 139 

gun, were still remote enough from the ordinary course of 
female accomplishments to startle the public. Where they 
came frtwn on former occasions we know not ; but in this 
instance they may be referred to Mr. Beckford, together 
with the still more recondite scraps of far-off tongues that 
are scattered through the work. 

"Cecil" is a perfect representation of the worst, but 
certainly the most dazzling, aspect of Mrs. Gore's genius. 
It abounds in flashy, high-mettled fashionable slang, and is 
thrown off in such a vein of upsetting egotism, with such a 
show of universal knowledge, and in a style of such dashing 
effrontery, that it carries the multitude fairly off their legs. 
There never was a novel written at such a slapping pace. 
The fearlessness of the execution diverts attention from its 
deficiencies as a work of art, and helps in a great degree to 
conceal the real poverty of the conception. But books of 
this class will not endure the test of re-perusal. Their shal- 
lowness becomes palpable at the second reading, even to 
those who have not sufficient discernment to detect it at 
once. 

As there is nothing so intolerable as dulness, so there is 
nothing so attractive as vivacity. And this is the predominant 
quality which has insured the success of" Cecil." The un- 
flagging gaiety by which the story is lighted up, puts the 
reader into the best possible humour with himself and the 
author. When this temper of mutual good-will is attained 
by any means, the result is safe. But critics must not suffer 
their judgment to be taken by storm in this way. They 
must look a little below the surface, and satisfy themselves 
as to the congruity of the fable, the truthfulness of the char- 
' acters, and the general bearing of the whole design. To 
subject the motley " Cecil " to such an ordeal would be an 
act of great cruelty. It would be the breaking of a very 
! charming butterfly on a wheel of torture. The plot is fre- 
I quently absurd and sometimes improbable — the prominent 
i figures are at best clever exaggerations of an artificial state of 
1 society — and the moral, if that be the right name for the 
' final impression it leaves upon the mind, is an unprofitable 
\ exposition of selfishness and sensuality, and of aristocratic 
' talents steeped to rottenness in the most debasing vices. The 
1 second series was an attempt to redeem " Cecil," but, like 
I most second series, the experiment was felt on all hands to 
be a failure. 



140 G. p. R. JAMES, MRS. GORE, 

We have referred to " Cecil" for the purpose of getting 
rid at once of all our objections to Mrs. Gore as a novelist. 
Wherever she has elsewhere missed a complete triumph, it 
has generally arisen from the intrusion of this same spirit of 
coxcombry. As a painter of society, possessing knowledge 
of human nature, she leaves the Richardsons and Brookes far 
behind. The elasticity of her manner is perfectly unrivalled. 
If she rarely reaches the quiet humour of Madame D' Arblay, 
and never realizes the Dutch fidelity of Miss Austen, she 
preserves, upon the whole, a more sustained flight than 
either.* Although nearly all her novels belong to the same 
genus, and are minted off with nearly the same pattern, they 
do not fatigue or disappoint the reader. Their buoyancy 
imparts to them a perpetual youth. 

Mrs. Gore's views of English society are not always 
founded on actual observation. Sometimes, out of sheer 
impatience of time and thought, she drops into the old tra- 
ditions of fashionable life, as they have descended to us in 
the plays and novels of the last century, making her lords 
and ladies move about like persons in a masquerade, who 
have come to play allegorical characters and show off their 
finery, instead of being engaged in the bona fide business of 
life. Yet she presents this false picture with so much tact 
and adroitness, and colours it so superbly, that, with all our 
consciousness of its unreality, we feel it to be irresistibly 
amusing. Genius alone can thus invest shadows with inter- 
est ; and there is a felicity in Mrs. Gore's genius which gives 
piquancy and effect to every thing she touches. When she 
sets herself in earnest to sketch the aristocracy, she shows 
how little necessity she has for reflecting in her faithful 
pages artificial modes that have been long since extinct, or 
cobweb refinements that never existed. She never succeeds 
so well as in that class of experiences which come within her 
own immediate observation. Her gentry are capital. She 
excels in the portraiture of the upper section of the middle 
class, just at the point of contact with the nobility, where 
their own distinguishing traits are modified by the peculiar- 
ities of their social position. The firmness and subtlety with 
which she traces them through all their relations, political 
and domestic; the almost masculine energy she throws into 

* We hardly feel at ease in the above classification of Richardson witli ihe author 
ofthe"FooIof Quality." We also Ihink that Miss Austen preserves a very sus- 
tained lliglil : it may be near the ground, but she never flags in a feather. — Ed. 



CAPT. MARRYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOPE. 141 

her vivid details of party intrigue, from the public conten- 
tions in parliament to the secret conspiracies of the club and 
the boudoir ; and the consummate sagacity she displays in 
unveiling to its very household recesses the interior life that 
pants under all this external tumult, wrong-headed and hol- 
low-hearted, proud, sensitive, and irritable — are solid quali- 
ties upon which she may safely repose for the verdict of pos- 
terity. 

Her parvemies are quite equal in their way to any ex- 
amples of the kind in our language, without being degraded 
by superfluous grossness, or farcical expedients. They are 
not labelled like fools and jesters, but made to work out 
their ends by their own lusty vanities, and by the unsuspect- 
ing sincerity with which they eternally strive against the 
grain of their unfitness. She lets their humanity rise supe- 
rior to the humour she raises at their expense, and sometimes 
even flings a tinge of sadness over their hopeless exclusion 
from the circles to which they aspire. She does not hesi- 
tate to exhibit them, on occasion, like the poor Peri crouch- 
ed at the gate of Paradise with the opal light falling through 
a chink on her folded wings. She is not unmindful of the 
. pathetic iruth that wells up to the surface of all misdirected 
efforts and false enthusiasm, even through the most ludicrous 
association of ideas. It is this truth which makes " Don 
Quixote," to those who perceive its true meaning, one of the 
most profoundly melancholy books in the world. 

If we wanted a complete contrast to Mrs. Gore, we have 
it at hand in Mrs. Trollope. The class to which she be- 
longs is, fortunately, very small ; but it will always be re- 
cruited from the ranks of the unscrupulous, so long as a cor- 
rupt taste is likely to yield a trifling profit. She owes every 
thing to that audacious contempt of public opinion, which 
is the distinguishing mark of persons who are said to stick 
at nothing. Nothing but this sticking at nothing could 
have produced some of the books she has written, in which 
her wonderful impunity of face is so remarkable. Her con- 
stitutional coarseness is the natural element of a low popu- 
larity, and is sure to pass for cleverness, shrewdness, and 
strength, where cultivated judgment and chaste inspiration 
would be thrown away.* Her books of travel are crowded 

* Still, we submit that the critic docs not admit enough on the other side. We 
think Mrs Trollope is clever, shrewd, and stvong ; as certainly es that Mrs. Gore has 
a hrizht wit. — Ed. 



]42 G. p. R. JAMES, MRS. GORK, 

with plebeian criticisms on works of art and the usages of 
courts, and are doubtless held in great esteem by her admir- 
ers who love to see such things overhauled and dragged down 
to their own level. The book on America is of a different 
class. The subject exactly suited her style and her taste, 
and people looked on at the fun as they would at a scramble 
of sweeps in the kennel ; while the reflecting few thought it 
a little unfair in Mrs. Trollope to find fault with the manners 
of the Americans. Happy for her she had such a topic to 
begin with. Had she commenced her literary career with 
Austria or France, in all likelihood, she would have ended it 
there. 

But it is to her novels she is chiefly indebted for her 
current reputation ; and it is here her defects are most glar- 
ingly exhibited. She cannot adapt herself to the character- 
ization requisite in a work of fiction : she cannot go out of 
herself: she serves up every thing with the same sauce ; the 
predominant flavour is Trollope still. The plot is ahvays 
preposterous, and the actors in it seem to be eternally bully- 
ing each other. She takes a strange delight in the hideous 
and revolting, and dwells with gusto upon the sins of vul- 
garity. Her sensitiveness upon this point is striking. She 
never omits an opportunity of detailing the faults of low-bred 
people, and even goes out of her way to fasten the stigma 
upon others who ought to have been more gently tasselled. 
Then her low people are sunk deeper than the lowest depths, 
as if they had been bred in and in, to the last dregs. Nothing 
can exceed the vulgarity of Mrs. Trollope's mob of char- 
acters, except the vulgarity of her select aristocracy. That 
is transcendent — it caps the climax. 

We have heard it urged on behalf of Mrs. Trollope, that 
her novels are, at all events, drawn from life. So are sign- 
paintings. It is no great proof of their truth that centaurs 
and griffins do not run loose through her pages, and that her 
men and women have neither hoofs nor tails. The taw- 
driest wax-works, girt up in paste and spangles, are also 
" drawn from life;" but there ends the resemblance. 

Foremost amongst the novelists who really do " draw 
from life," is Captain Marryatt. Were it necessary to seek 
any excuse for occasional blemishes in his tales, the best 
that could be found is, that they are, more or less, indige- 
nous to the soil he turns up. The life-like earnestness of 



C4PT. MARHYATT, AND MRS. TROLLOTE. 143 

his sketches may generally be urged with confidence in vin- 
dication of any fiiults which may be detected in them by 
prudish or captious readers. Captain Marryatt is the an- 
tipodes of a fine writer. His English is always rough-cast, 
and his style frequently crude and slovenly. But this neg- 
ligence of forms only heightens the substantial interest of 
the matter. He tells a story like one who has his heart in 
it, and who is indifferent to every thing but his facts. The 
veracity of his fictions, if we may use the expression, con- 
stitutes their permanent charm. 

Few novelists have ever more distinctly shown, that the 
secret of success, in works of this description is close adher- 
ence to nature. There are no dramatic perplexities in his 
books, no fluent descriptions, no turgid appeals to the 
imagination: his narratives are simple and progressive ; he 
never uses a word more than he actually wants ; and the 
class from which he generally selects his characters, cannot 
certainly be considered very attractive to the public at large. 
Yet his novels are read with breathless curiosity in the most 
refined circles, as well as in those to whose sympathies they 
are more directly addressed. By what means does he so 
successfully attain this result ? By fidelity to the nature he 
professes to delineate. There is literally nothing else in his 
books to fascinate attention. But, then, this " like Aaron's 
serpent swallows up the rest." 

Coincident with his inherent truthfulness is the total ab- 
sence of egotism and affectation. You never feel the author 
looking in upon you through the curtains of the story to see 
how you like him. There is no personal idiosyncrasy thrust 
upon you ; no literary vanity suspending the action to let the 
author survey himself in the glass ; the story predominates 
to the entire exclusion of the authorship, and might have 
been written by A., B. or C, as well as by Marryatt, for all 
the reader has any reason to know. 

It is the " one touch of nature," that makes people who 
are technically ignorant of ships and seamen, and of the sea- 
ward life, articulated so correctly in Captain Marryatt's books, 
feel so strong an interest in the fortunes of his heroes. Their 
individuality rises up palpably under his hands. The vicis- 
situdes through which they pass may be new and foreign, 
but their humanity is intelligible and familiar. His charac- 
ters, whatever may be their rank, are appropriate to the 



144 G. p. R. JAMES", MRS. GORE, ETC, 

place and business in which they are engaged ; they are acting 
precisely as you would expect such men to act in such circum- 
stances ; they are surrounded by the essentials of their con- 
dition ; and a practical propriety and consistency, the per- 
fection of art in its kind, invariably presides over their language 
and conduct. You becpme gradually intimate with them, 
and are affected at last by a pure sympathy in their way of 
life ; and thus, a race peculiar in itself, and remote from the 
daily intercourse of the world, is made to reach and agitate 
the universal heart. 

Of course we do not apply this description indiscrimi- 
nately to all Captain Marryati's productions. It must be 
taken with exceptions ; as all criticisms must, that aim at 
notiiino- more than to exhibit salient characteristics. 







JiTT^^^ ^Ck^t^ /ti.^^^ ^ 



lilt o£ MicK«li-i-L « ftup.r.! . lllU'.nsn.L ZtUT 



THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. 



"A Serjeant of the Lawe, ware and wise, 
That oflen hadde yben at the paruis. 
There was also, fall riche of excellence. 
Discrete he was, and of great reverence ; 
He seemed swiche, his wordes were so wise." 

Chaucer. 

" And give me stomach to digest this Law, 
O sacred Poesy, the queen of souls ! 
Would men learn bul to distinguish spirits. 
And set true difference 'twixt those jaded wits 
That run a broken pace for common hire, 
And the high raptures of a happy muse ! — 
****** 
Hence, Law, and welcome Muses ! tho' not rich, 
Yet are you pleasing: let's be reconciled !" 

Ben Jonson, 

It falls to the lot of very few men to attain to eminence 
in many and various paths. The subject of the present es- 
say, celebrated as an able, accomplished, and conscientious 
lawyer, an acute critic of independent judgment and gener- 
ous feelings, an eloquent orator, a consistent legislator, and 
a dramatic poet, is one of these few who have so signalized 
themselves. 

Thomas Noon Talfourd is a native of Reading. His 
mother was the daughter of Mr. Thomas Noon, who was for 
thirty years the minister of the Independent congregation 
there. Accordingly he was instructed in their strict tenets, 
and his early education was obtained in their school at Mill- 
Hill : but being removed to the public grammar school under 
Dr. Valpy, he there acquired a love of Shakspeare and the 
drama — forbidden ground to his native sect — and soon adopt- 
ed the less rigid doctrines of the Church of England. At 
the same time he acquired those ardent political feelings, 
which, tempered by time, he has always sinvc maintained. 
His poetical talent was developed equally early, in the year 
1811, while still at school, he published a volume entitled 



140 SERJEANT TALFOURD. 

" Poems on various Subjects." The subjects are interest- 
ing, as evincing the character of his thoughts at this early 
period. One of them, entitled, "On the Education of the 
Poor," and another, " The Union and Brotherhood of Man- 
kind," obtained for him the acquaintance of Joseph Fox, 
distinguished for his zeal in the cause of education, and this 
new friend introduced him by letter to Lord (then Mr. Hen- 
ry) Brougham. He was received by that distinguished in- 
dividual with the utmost kindness, and encouraged to work 
his way to the bar through literature. Following this judi- 
cious advice, he engaged himself in 1813 to Mr. Chitty for 
u period of four years. 

The literary career of the young lawyer began with an 
essay published in the " Pamphleteer," early in 1813, enti- 
tled, " An Appeal to the Protestant Dissenters of Great Brit- 
ain on behalf of the Catholics." This essay was eloquently 
written and breathed a spirit ofliberality, such as is rightly 
denominated " Christian." Talfourd was then under eigh- 
teen. " A Critical Examination of some objections taken 
by Cobbett to the Unitarian Relief Bill," was a very success- 
ful attempt to grapple with a writer of such singular power. 
" Observations on the Punishment of the Pillory," and " An 
Appeal against the Act for regulating Royal Marriages," 
took the side of humanity against barbarous custom and 
mistaken notions of national policy. 

An "Attempt to Estimate the Poetical Talent of the 
Present Age," written in 1815, is chiefly remarkable as tes- 
tifying his high appreciation of the poetry of Wordsworth, 
(at a period when such a testimony was sufficient to ensure 
almost universal ridicule,) and scarcely less so for the cour- 
age with which it denounced the gloomy exaggerations of 
Lord Byron, who was then in the full blaze of his popu- 
larity, ilazlitt's " Spirit of the Age," was not published 
till ten years afterwards. Mr. Talfourd was probably the 
very first who publicly declared, on critical grounds, that 
William Wordsworth was a true poet. In this declaration, 
as in several others in this " Estimate," he displayed the 
very uncommon critical faculty of discovei'ing the truth by 
its own light, and the almost, as uncommon courage and 
generosity in telling the world — without equivocation or 
escape-valves — what he had found. 

In 1817, Talfourd started as a Special Pleader. During 



SERJEANT TALFOURD. 147 

his period of study he had assisted Mr. Chitty in his volu- 
minous work on the Criminal Laws. The cliief quarters in 
which he carried on his literary labours, were now in the 
"Retrospective Review" and the "Encyclopaedia Metro- 
politana." The articles on " Homer," on " Greek Trage- 
dians," and " Greek Lyric Poets," in the latter, were writ- 
ten by him. He began his connection with the " New 
Monthly" in 1820, and continued to furnish the dramatic 
criticisms, besides other papers, in that magazine for twelve 
years. He subsequently wrote in the " Edinburgh Review" 
and " London Magazine," and published in 1826 a Memoir 
of Mrs. RadclilTe, prefixed to her posthumous work of 
"Gaston de Blondeville." About the same time he brought 
out an edition of " Dickenson's Guide to the Quarter Ses- 
sions," a labour for which the puzzled brains of country 
squires best know how to feel grateful to him. 

Mr. Talfourd was called to the bar by the Society of the 
Middle Temple in 1821, and joined the Oxford Circuit and 
Berkshire Sessions. In 1822 he married Rachel, daughter 
of John Powell Rutt, Esq., a name well known to political 
reformers. 

The gradual extension of his professional engagements 
through the circuit, induced him to retire from the sessions 
at the expiration of twelve years, when he was called to the 
decrree of Serjeant — the very same year in which he wrote 
his tragedy of " Ion." He now confines his practice almost 
exclusively to the circuit of the Common Pleas. Any ex- 
ception has been on occasions when his sympathies excited 
him to exertion. He undertook the defence of the " True 
Sun" newspaper in the King's Bench, and electrified the 
court by his eloquence on that occasion. His defence of 
" Tait's Magazine" against Richmond, in the Exchequer, 
was equally brilliant and sound of argument. 

In 1834, the electors of Reading returned their distin- 
guished townsman to Parliament by a large majority, com- 
posed of all parties. He was returned again in the General 
Election of 1839, but declined standing in that of 1841. 
His parliamentary career has been distinguished by the same 
high talent, consistency of principle, and moral purpose, 
wliich have pervaded his life. His most celebrated speeches 
are those on moving for the Law of Copy-right, and on 
bringing forward his " Custody of Infants" Bill. The tone 



148 SERJEANT TALFOURD. 

and style of the former speech were, like its subject, new to 
the ear of the House ; but he was listened to with deep at- 
tention, while with earnest and fluent language, assisted by 
happy illustrative reference, he enforced the claims of the 
struggling professors of literature upon that property in the 
products of the brain, which the law allowed to be wrested 
from them. With regard to the Custody of Infants, his at- 
tempt to obtain an alteration of the statute, which in every 
case of separation, though the character of the wife was as 
free from spot or taint as that of the husband was sullied 
by vice, yet relentlessly tore the children from their mother, 
and gave them as his sole right to the father — was advo- 
cated with indefatigable zeal, and finally with success. 

Mr. Sergeant Talfourd was an assiduous discharger of 
his parliamentary duties, when not engaged on the circuit; 
notwithstanding which, he always found time for literature. 
The two tragedies which succeeded "Ion," were written 
while he was in Parliament. He also at that period pub- 
lished an edition of the " Letters of Lamb," with a touch- 
ing and masterly sketch of the life of his old friend ; a de- 
lightful book to all true lovers of literature. 

While the leisure hours of Mr. Talfourd have been en- 
riched with the society of the most distinguished literary 
characters of the time, for among his friends have been — the 
living would be too numerous to mention — Godwin, Hazlitt, 
Coleridge, Lamb, &lc., he never forgot his old master, Dr. 
Valpy. Among other instances of friendly intercourse, 
which continued to the close of Dr. Valpy's life, he regu- 
larly attended all the meetings of the school, and always 
wrote the epilogues to the Greek Plays triennially per- 
formed. 

Mr. Talfourd is remarkable for having achieved an 
equally high reputation in law and in letters; and it is ; 
almost as peculiar a circumstance that he has had so few 
dissentient voices among the critics of his day. Dissentient 
voices of course he has had to endure, as all eminent men 
must have in their lifetime, and more or less afterwards; 
but if the worthy Serjeant has occasionally suffered, he has 
not had more than " his share," while the majority have 
cordially admitted his claims vi'ith such slight objections or 
differences of opinion with him, and with each other, as are 
natural to different minds in contemplating the same objects. 



SERJEANT TALFOURD. 149 

The spirit of fairness asks and permits this amicable discus- 
sion on all hands, and with this feeling the following critical 
remarks are submitted. 

If the public, with its leaders and teachers and censors of 
the present day, are cold and indifferent with regard to dra- 
matic literature, or positively hostile when a drama is pub- 
lished without having been produced on the stage — it is prob- 
able that matters were still worse in this respect when Mr. 
Talfourd commenced his dramatic career. To complete, 
therefore, the peculiarity of his position, he wrung from the 
public and the inflaencers of its opinions — opinions which 
seemed to assume some credit to themselves for their undra- 
matic tendencies — a triumph, and on the very stage, for a 
legitimate drama ; and while the age had been returning, in 
the more prominent of its late poetry, to the Shaksperian 
and Elizabethan standards, he stood in the doorway of the 
Gallic-Greek-English school, and took the town by surprise 
with a new " Cato" of a stronger colouring and calibre. 
We say advisedly the Gallic-Greek-English school, — mean- 
ing the Gallic conception of the Greek drama, which is in- 
deed a thing as unlike the reality, as Versailles is to the 
Parthenon ; and which Dryden helped to naturalize in Eng- 
land, when he "reformed" our versification generally, upon 
the Gallic conception of rhythm. Of this school (not that 
we for a moment would hint at any actual similarity) were 
Addison's " Cato," Johnson's " Irene," and Home's " Doug- 
lass ;" and of this, in our later age, arose "Ion," which is 
well worth all the three, taking them on their own ground; 
more exalted than " Cato," more eloquent than " Irene," 
and more purely tender than " Douglass;" with a glow from 
end to end, which may be called the stntimcnt of unity, and 
which nobly distinguishes it from all. Let the same ques- 
tion of origin be put to Mr. Talfourd's as to the " Ion" of 
lEuripides, — 

Kai Jt^ ydlay.n a tit'OQtil'S JtXcfi^wv ; 

and it must be answered, we believe, even so. 

Of the concentration and passion of the Shaksperian 
drama, Mr. Talfourd's first dramatic production does not, 
as we have assumed, partake. The appeal of his tragedy is 
■to the conscicnt'wusnciis of its audience; and it purines less 
^by pity and terror, than by admiration and exaltation. Its 



150 SERJEANT TALFOURD. 

power is less an intellectual and poetical, than a mcral 
power; and the peculiarity of its sublime lies significantly 
in the excellence of its virtue. For, — avoiding any loose 
classification of this tragedy with the works of the Greek 
dramatists, on the specious ground of its containing that 
awful dogma of fatalism which is the thunder of the iEschy- 
lean drama ; — the critic will recognize upon consideration, 
that while the design of ""Ion" turns upon a remorseless 
fatalism, the principal action turns upon virtue completing 
herself within the narrow bounds left by Destiny to Life. 
It is not only a drama of fate, but of self-devoted duty. The 
necessity of woe is not stronger in it, than the necessity of 
heroism. The determination of the heroic free-will con- 
fronts in it gloriously the predestination of circumstance. 
And, strikingly and contrastingly eflective, there arises be- 
side the vis incrtitT. of the colossal Fate, and the vis cir- 
taminis of the high-hearted victim, the tender elevated 
purity of the woman Clemanthe; equal in augustness to 
either power, and crushed disconsolately between both. 

This mixture of the pure Christian principle of faith and 
love with the Greek principle of inexorable fate, produces 
an incongruity in the tragedy which raises a confiict in the 
mind. Capricious demons are left triumphant, and noble 
humanity is sacrificed. The very same effect is equally 
produced by the method and style of the execution. In the 
Greek mode of treating these subjects the sublime rather 
than the beautiful is aimed at; the sterner and cclder char- 
acters of the actors, and the powerful effect of the chorus, 
nerve the mind to bear the contemplation of humanity in , 
the iron grasp of Fate. Above all, sympathy is not allowed | 
to rest satisfied with the triumph of the remorseless gods, ■ 
for the old Greek tragedians (if we except yEschylus) were i 
most of them skeptical at heart. The choruses, besides 
their alarms, would have " had their doubts." 

The tragedy of "Ion" has an admirable unity of 
purpose and expression ; a unity apart from the ' uni- 
ties,' and exceeding them in critical value ; and in itself 
an essential characteristic of every high work of art. 
The conception springs clear from the author's mind, and 
alights with fulness upon the reader's; the interest is 
uninterrupted throughout, and the final impression dis- 
tinct. To the language, may be attributed appropriate- 



SERJEANT TALFOURD. ]ol 

ness and eloquence, with some occasional redundance, and 
a certain deficiency in strength : the images are rather 
elegant than bold or original ; and the versification flows 
gracefully and copiously within the limits of the school. 
The effect of the whole is such as would be created, were 
it possible to restore the ground-plan of an Athenian temple 
in its majestic and simple proportions, and decorate it with 
the elegant statues of Canova. 

Mr. Talfourd's second work of " The Athenian Cap- 
tive," has much of the ruling principle, and most of the 
features of his former tragedy, though with sufficient va- 
riety in its structure and adornments. If he appears some- 
what haunted by the ideal virtue of his " Ion," it is not an 
ignoble bewitchment ; nor could any right priestly hand ex- 
tend itself very eagerly to exorcise a "man of Lawe " of 
the nineteenth century, from the presence of such high 
chivalrous shadows. It was produced under Mr. Macready's 
auspices, who personated the chief character very finely. 
The effect of the tragedy was very good in itself; very well 
received by a crowded audience; promised to become a 
refining influence upon the stage — a stage so much needing 
such assistance — was played three or four times, and has 
never been acted since. The mysteries, like the stupidities, 
of Manngement, are inscrutable. 

The tragedy of " Glencoe," — or " The Fate of the Mac- 
donalds," again displayed the learned author's tendency to 
revert to the old classical tyranny of fate. But still greater 
varieties \vere introduced in the present instance than in the 
production last named. And not merely in the scenery 

and costume ; nor in the wish to write for a favourite actor 

though the "Advertisement to the Second Edition" would 
lead us fully to expect this. 

" It was composed in the last vacation at Glandwr, in the most beautiful part of 
Nonli Wales, chiefiij for the purpose of embodying the feelings which the grandest 
scenery in the Iliahlanf's of Scotland had awakened, when I visited them in the pie- 
ceding iiutumn. I had nodistimt intention at that time of seeking for it a trial on the 
stage ; but having almost unconsciously blended with the image of the hero, tlif fig- 
ure.^ fh" attitude.-:, and the tanes of the great actor whom I had associated for many 
yeurs with every form of tragedy, I could not altogether repress the hope that I might 
one (h>y enjoy the delight, &c. &c. The Pliy was printed, merely for the purpose of 
being presented to my friends ; but when only two or three copies had been presented 
I was encouraged to believe that it would one day be acted," &c. &.c. 

Passing over such objections as might be made to a ' tra- 
gedy " being written chiefly for the purpose of describing the 



152 SERJEANT TALFOURD. 

emotions induced by any local scenery — what a development 
is contained, in the last two sentences, of the condition of 
dramatic affairs in this country ! — of the all-powerful posi- 
tion of a manager or principal actor, and of the humiliating 
position of the dramatic poet. Here we see one of the most 
able and eminent men of the time humbly relating how he 
was " encouraged to believe that his play would one day be 
acted !" Instead of Mr. Talfourd being in a position to 
command the representation of any production, it turjis out 
that he is exactly in the position of all other dramatists — ■ 
acted or unacted. Yet people wonder at the poverty of the 
modern acted drama, and of the dearth of any new pieces 
of the higher class. If Mr, Talfourd, with his third trage- 
dy, felt himself surrounded and oppressed with all these 
doubts and difficulties, what wonder that nearly all other 
dramatists should have had no chance. The accusations of 
partiality or favouritism in the selection of the productions of 
particular men — except in the single instance of Sir E. L. 
Bulwer — are comparatively unfounded. The expenses now 
thought necessary to incur in the production of a new five- 
act piece upon the stage, are so heavy, that very few new 
pieces can be produced in a season; so that the general sys- 
tem is a tolerably impartial and sweeping rejection, for 
which it is foolishly thought requisite bv managements to 
offer some other reasons, critical or prevaricating. 

But in this tragedy of " Glencoe," there is not only the 
charm of descriptive poetry, there is also the poetry of feel- 
ing, and of deep unaffected sentiment. It has nothing in 
common with that mawkish sentimentality and affectation 
of something profound, either in thought or feeling, which 
are discoverable in too many productions of our day. In 
"Glencoe" there is developed clearly, and truly, that an- 
guish which overcomes a noble mind, wlien its affections, 
having been drawn out under the half-guilty, half-innocent 
guise of female friendship, till the devotion became entire 
and absorbing the whole being — are put aside and evaded 
by the fair friend on the score of nothing more than friend- 
ship having been understood. An anguish in which the fu- 
ture life of the lover has become a drifting wreck ; and that 
of the thoughtless deceiver generally a sacrifice to son;e un- 
genial and selfish alliance. The tragedy ends rather poorly 
in comparison with the expectations raised by the emotions 



SERJEANT TALFOURD. 153 

previously excited ; but that one striking phase in the histo- 
ry of human hearts, is, however, embodied in " Glencoe," 
and with a force, which the delicacy and refinement of the 
language sometimes renders less apparent to the ear than to 
the sensibility, but which is derived from its inherent truth, 
and clearness of development. 

It may be said of Mr. Talfourd, as a general estimate of 
his character, abilities, and aim in life, that his whole career 
has been equally distinguished by high moral purpose, and 
by the most unquestionable talents. It does not fall within 
the scope of this work to enter into any examination of Mr. 
Talfourd's legal abilities; we must, therefore, content our- 
selves with observing, that the marked anxiety of professional 
men to obtain his services can only be the result of an expe- 
rience of the most advantageous results. 



R. M. MILNES, AND H. COLERIDGE. 



" Oh, sir ! pray is this gold ? — and this ? — and tliis ? 
* -s * * * t * 

Dotli it sound ? — 

Melodiously — a golden tune." 

Shirley's Arcadia. 

The poetry of Richard Monckton Milnes has met with 
considerable praise in many quarters, yet hardly as much as 
it deserves; and it has met with peculiar dispraise, more 
than it deserves, either in kind or degree. A common case 
enough. Of the poetry of Hartley Coleridge, — as of Charles 
Tennyson, and Thomas Wade, — we may say without fear of 
contradiction, that, like many other good things, it is not at 
all known to the public. 

Mr. Milnes has been accused of a want of the divine fire 
of imagination and passion ; and he has, moreover, been ac- 
cused of merely thinking that he thinks, — or of imitating 
the tone and current of other men's minds, and mistaking 
that for the original impulse and production of his own. 
Not any of these broad accusations are justifiable, and in 
some respects they are demonstrably unfounded. 

Mr. Milnes does not appear to possess the least drama- 
tic passion, nor does he display much impulse or energy in 
his poetry. There is no momentum in the progress of his 
lines; and the want is conspicuously betrayed in his blank 
verse, because, of all other forms, that is the one which ab- 
solutely requires the most genuine, thought-sustained, and 
unflagging energies. We aie almost tempted to hazard the 
opinion that fine blank verse requires great material stam- 
ina; in fact, a powerful internal physique, to carry on the 
burthen and purpose of the soul. \\ e think that the psy- 
chological history of nearly every one of our great poets 
who wrote in blank verse, will bear us out in the opinion. > 
Several exceptions are undoubtedly against tliis ; and the 



RICHARB MONCKTON MILNBS, ETC. 155 

greatest of them would be Keats ; yet here the exception 
would tend to prove the rule, as he died soon after the pro- 
duction of his only poem in blank verse, which is, more- 
over, unfinished. How far this latter speculation — which 
indeed may be of no sound value — would be applicable or 
inapplicable to the poet at present under discussion, need 
not be considered, because he seldom writes in blank verse ; 
he is essentially a lyrical poet ; but to his occasionally 
attempting the former may be attributed some of the accu- 
sations of want of passion and impulsive energies. 

But the most ostensible is not always the most forcible ; 
there is latent fire as well as palpable combustion ; and the 
effect of genuine elements, though always proportionate to 
its cause, must seem inadequate, in all cases of very refined 
or quiet development, except to those who are prepared with 
a ready sympathy, and can recognize the deepest source 
from the least murmuring that rises up to the surface. A 
poet should be judged by the class to which he belongs, and 
by the degree of success he attains in his own favorite aim. 
Mr. Milnes, regarding poetry as " the gods' most choicest 
dower," says of it, in his " Leucas," — 

" Poesy, which in chaste repose abides. 
As in its atmosphere ; that placid flower 
Tliou liast exposed to passion's tiery tides," &,c. 

Here, at once, we discover Mr. Milnes's theory, and the 
chief aim of his muse. Sappho is blamed for steeping her 
verse in " passion's fiery tides," because poesy is said to 
abide " in chaste repose," as its proper atmosphere. By 
this standard, then, is the poetry of Richard Monckton 
Milnes to be measured ; it is a standard of inherent beauty ; 
and he will be found to attain it most completely. A short 
extract from one of the earliest poems in his collection pub- 
lished ten years ago, will suffice to illustrate this. 

" But when in clearer unison 

That marvellous concord still went on ; 
And gently as a blossom grojcs 
I A flame of syllables uprose ; 

With a delight akin to fear 

My heart beat fast and strong, to hear 
Two murmurs beautifully blent 
As of a voice and instrument, 
A hand laid lightly on low chords, 

A voice that sobbed between its words. 
" Stranger ! tlie voice that trembles in your oar 
ii You would have placed had you been fancy free 

First in the chorus of the happy sphere 
The home of deified mortality. 



156 RICHARD MONKTON MILNES, 



Stranger, the voice is Sappho's, — weep ; oh ! weep, 

That tlie soft tears of sympathy may fall 
Into this prison of the sunless deep, 

Where 1 am laid in miserable thrall."* 

Lcucas. 

It is as a lyric and elegiac poet (in the ancient sense of 
elegy) with a temperament rather elegiac than lyric, that 
Mr. Monckton Milnes takes his place among the distin- 
guished writers of his age and country. Notwithstanding 
that he has written " Poetry for the People," neither in the 
work in question nor in any other, has he given evidence of 
a genius calculated for popular appeals. He might have 
called his work " Poetry for the Philosophers ;" but the 
very philosophers should be of the upper House and accus- 
tomed to tread softly upon Plato's carpets, or they would be 
found inevitably defective, now and then, in their range of 
sympathies. For Mr. Milnes is an aristocrat in literature 
and modes of thought ; though we are far from meaning to 
insinuate that he merely " writes like a gentleman ;" his 
mind and heart are too strong in the " humanities." But 
the impulses of mind and heart, although abundantly human 
and true, are surrounded by so definite a circle of intellec- 
tual habit, that they cannot, or, at least, do not cast them- 
selves beyond it ; and they remain coloured by the mode. 
He thinks the truth out boldly, and feels generously the use 
of speaking it j but the medium of expression between him 
and the public, is somewhat conventionally philosophical in i 
its character, and too fine and recondite in its peculiarities, ! 
to be appreciated by the people popularly so called. 

The poetical productions of Hartley Coleridge are also 
exclusively lyrical and elegiac. He is one of the many 
instances of the disadvantage of having an eminent father. 
It was almost impossible for the son of such a man not to be 
influenced by his father's genius to a degree that is destruc- 
tive of originality. With strong feeling, a bright fancy, and 
a facility of versification, there is yet a certain hard resem- 
blance in the poems of the son to the poems of the father, 
which may perhaps be termed an unconscious mechanism I 
of the faculties, acting under the associations of love. His | 
designs want invention, and his rhapsodies abandonment. 
His wildness does not look quite spontaneous, but as if it 

* MemoriaU of a Tour in Greece, by R. M. Milnes. 1634. 



AND HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 157 

blindly followed something errHtic. The mirth seems rather 
forced ; but the love and the melancholy are his own. 
Hartley Coleridge has a sterling vein of thought in him, 
without a habit and order of thought. It is extremely pro- 
bable that he keeps his best things to himself His father 
talked his best thoughts, so that somebody had the benefit 
of them ; his son for the most part keeps his for his own 
bosom. 

We are averse to notice a man's politics in speaking of 
his poetry, but Mr. Hartley Coleridge forces his spleen dis- 
agreeably upon the attention, especially in his " Leonard 
and Susan." 

But if the lovers of poetry have done wrong to suffer the 
verses of Hartley Coleridge to sink into the mass of forgot- 
ten publications, it is a far stronger ground of complaint 
that the poems of Thomas Wade — author of " Mundi et 
Cordis Carmina," " Helena," and " Prothanasia," &c., 
should not have fared very much better in respect of popu- 
larity. The first of these works contains many echoes of 
other poets, the consequence of studies in a "loving spirit," 
but the echoes are true to their origin, and in the finest 
spirit. In most cases, the thoughts and images are his own, 
derived from his own imagination, and from the depths of 
his being. This is more especially the case with " Protha- 
nasia," which is founded upon a passage in the correspond- 
ence of Bettine Brentano with Goethe, and is well worthy of 
its foundation. A few lines of invocation will display the 
fervid tone of this poem : — 

" Beautiful River I could I flow like thee, 
Year after year, thro' this deliciousness 
Ever renewing ; and retain no more 
Of human thought and passion than might yield 
A loving consciousness of grace and joy ; 
I could content me to endure, till Time 
Had heap'd such million'd years upon his record, 
As almost in himself to seem and he 
The sole Eternity ! — O, trees and flowers ; 
Joy-lhroated birds ; and ye, soft airs and hues, 
Tliat nestle in yon skiey radiance ! 
Happy ye are, as beauteous : to your life. 
Unrealized, unrealizable. 
Intolerable, infinite desire 
Approacheth never ; and ye live and die, 
Your natures all-fulfilling and fulfill'd. 
Self-satiate and perfected." 

It is impossible to believe that such a poem should not 
ome day find its just appreciation in the public mind. And 



15S RICHARD MUNCKTON MILNES, 

it is the least of the merits of this author's productions that 
they display a care and classical finish from which many 
well-known writers might derive a very salutary lesson. 

The following is one of Mr. Wade's sonnets, the pro- 
phetic spirit of which is its own sufficient comment. It is 
entitled " A Prophecy." 

" There is a mighty dawning on the earth, 
Of human glory: dreams unknown before 
Fill the mind's boundless world, and wondrous birth 
Is given to great thought : the deep-drawn lore, 
But late a hidden fount, at which a few 
Q.uaff 'd and were glad, is now a flowing river. 
Which the parch'd nations may approach and view, 
Kneel down and drink, or float in it for ever : 
The bonds of Spirit are asunder broken. 
And Matter makes a very sport of distance ; 
On every side appears a silent token 
Of what will be hereafter, when Existence 
Shall even become a pure and equal thing. 
And earth sweep high as heaven, on solemn wing." 

And this, also by the same author, is a striking proof of 
intellectual subtlety : — 

" God will'd Creation ; but Creation was not 
The cause of that Almighty Will of God, 
But that great God's desire of emanation: 
Beauty of Human Love the object is ; 
But Love's sweet cause lives in the Soul's desire 
For intellectual, sensual sympathies : 
Seeing a plain-plumed bird, in whose deep throat, 
We know the richest power of music dwells, 
We long to hear its linked melodies : 
Scenting a far-off flower's most sweet perfume, 
That gives its balm of life to every wind, 
We crave to mark the beauty of its bloom ; 
But bird nor flower is that Volition's cause ; 
But Music and fine Grace, graven on the Soul, like laws." 

It may be said that there is such a thing as an author's 
voluntary abandonment of the field ; and that this is pecu- 
liarly the case with regard to Hartley Coleridge, and to 
Charles Tennyson. Perhaps so; still it is not a poet's busi- 
ness to be his own bellman. Be this as it may, there is 
something peculiarly touching in the withdrawal of Charles 
Tennyson from the pathway to the temple of Poesy, as 
though he would prefer to see his brother's name enshrined 
with an undivided fame. One little volume of sweet and 
unpretending poetry comprises all we know of him. It has 
long been out of print. His feeling of the " use and ser- 
vice " of poetry in the world may be comprised in a few 
lines, which may also be regarded as the best comment upon 
his own : — 



AND HAIITLEY COLERIDGE. 159 

VVe must, have music while we languish here, 
To make the Soul with pleasant fancies rife 
And soothe the stranget from another sphere. 

Sonnet xv. 

But perhaps we had better give one of Charles Tenny- 
son's sonnets entire : — 

" I trust thoe from my soul, O Mary dear, 
But, ofttiinea when olelight has fullest power, 
Hope treads too lightly for herself to hear, 
And doubt is ever by until the hour : 
I trust thee, Mary, but till thou art mine 
Up from thy foot unto thy golden hair, 
O let me still misgive thee and repitle. 
Uncommon doubts spring up with blessings rare! 
Thine eyes of purest love give surest sign. 
Drooping with fondness, and thy blushes tell 
A flitting tale of steadiest faith and zeal ; 
Yet I will doubt — to make success divine ! 
A tide of summer dreams with gentlest swell 
Will bear upon me then, and I shall love most well I" 

Sonnet xxiii. 

Mr. Milnes's earlier poems are more individual in ex- 
pression and ideal in their general tone, and probably con- 
tain more essential poetry and more varied evidence of their 
author's gifts, than the writings which it has since pleased 
him to vouchsafe to the public. He has since divested him- 
self of the peculiarities which offended some critics, and 
has more studiously incarnated himself to the perception of 
readers not poetical. The general character of his genius 
is gentle and musing. The shadow of an academical tree, 
if not of a temple-column, seems to lie across his brows, 
which are bland and cheerful none the less. He has too much 
real sensibility, too much active sympathy with the perpetual 
workings of nature and humanity, to have any morbid moan- 
ing sentimentality. Beauty he sees always ; but moral and 
, spiritual beauty, the light kernelled in the light, he sees su- 
premely. Never will you hear him ask, in the words of a 
great contemporary poet, 

" And is there any moral shut 
Within the bosom of a rose ?" 

because, while he would eschew with that contemporary the 
vulgar utilitarianism of moral drawing, he would perceive as 

(distinctly as the rose itself, and perhaps more distinctly, the 
spiritual significance of its beauty. His philosophy looks 
upward as well as looks round — looks upward because it 

I looks round : it is essentially and specifically Christian. 
His poetry is even ecclesiastical sometimes; and the author 



160 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, 

of "One Tract More," and his tendency towards a decora- 
tive religion, are to be recognized in the haste with which 
he lights a taper before a picture, or bends beneath a " Pa- 
pal Benediction." For the rest, he is a very astringent 
Protestant in his love for ratiocination — and he occasionally 
draws out his reasons into a fine line of metaphysics. He 
sits among the muses, making reasons; and when Apollo 
plucks him by the ear to incite him to some more purely po- 
etic work, — then he sings them. With every susceptibility 
of sense and fancy, and full of appreciations of art, he would 
often writepictorialiy if hedid not nearly always write ana- 
lytically. Moreover, he makes sentiments as well as rea- 
sons ; and whatever may be the nobility of sentiment or 
thought the words are sure to be worthy of it. He has 
used metres in nearly every kind of combination, and with 
results almost uniformly, if not often exquisitely, harmonious 
and expressive. There may be a slight want of suppleness 
and softness in his lighter rhythms, and his blank verse ap- 
pears to us defective in intonation and variety, besides such 
deficiencies as we have previously suggested; but the inter- 
mediate forms of composition abundantly satisfy the ear. 
With all this, he is quite undramatic ; and, in matters of 
character and story, has scarcely ever gone the length, and 
that never very successfully, even of the ordinary ballad 
writer. His poems, for the most part, are what is called 
" occasional," their motive — impulse, arising from without. 
He perceives and responds, rather than creates. Yet he 
must have the woof of his own personality to weave upon. 
With the originality which every man possesses who has 
strength enough to be true to his individuality, his genius 
has rather the air of reflection than of inspiration ; his muse 
is a Pythia competent to wipe the foam from her lips — if 
there be any foam. Thoughtful and self-possessed instead 
of fervent and impulsive, he is tender instead of passionate. 
And when he rises above his ordinary level of philosophy 
and tenderness, it is into a still air of rapture instead of into 
exulting tumults and fervours. Even his love poems, for 
which he has been crowned by the critics with such poor 
myrtle as they could gather, present a serene transfiguring 
of life instead of any quickening of the currents of life : the 
poet's heart never beats so tumultuously as to suspend his 
observation of the beating of it — 



AND HAKTLF.r COLERlDGt;. 161 

" And the beating of my own heart 
Was all the Eound I heard." 

The general estimate of him, in brief, is a thinking feel- 
ing man, worshipping and loving as a man should — gifted 
naturally, and retined socially ; and singing the songs of his 
own soul and heart, in a clear sweet serenity which does not 
want depth, none the less faithfully and nobly, that he looks 
occasionally from the harp-strings to the music-book. His 
" Lay of the Humble," " Long Ago," and other names of 
melodies, strike upon the memory as softly and deeply as a 
note of the melodies themselves — while (apart from these 
lyrics) he has written some of the fullest and finest sonnets, 
not merely of our age, but of our literature. 

The three other poets mentioned in this paper have 
each written very fine sonnets. Those of Charles Tennyson 
are extremely simple and unaffected : the spontaneous off- 
spring of the feelings and the fancy: — those of Thomas 
Wade are chiefly of the intellect ; high-wrought, recondite, 
refined, classical, and often of sterling thought, with an up- 
ward and onward eye : — those of Hartley Coleridge are re- 
flective : the emanations of a sad heart, aimless, of little 
hope, and resigned, — seeming to proceed from one who has 
suffered the best of his life to slip away from him unused. 
Sonnet IX. pathetically expresses this. 

" Long time a child, and still a child, when years 
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I ; 
For yet I lived like one not born to die ; 
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears, 
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears. 
But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking, 
I waked to sleep no more, at once o'ertaking 
The vanguard of my age with all arrears 
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man, 
Nor youth, nor sage, I tine my head is grey, 
For I have lost the race I never ran, 
A rathe December l>lights my lagging May ; 
And still I am a child, tho' I be old, 
Time is my debtor for my years untold.-' 

The prose writings of Hartley Coleridge, — particularly 
his " Yorkshire Worthies," and his Litroduction to " Mas- 
singer and Ford," — are all of first-rate excellence. It is 
much to be regretted they are not more numerous. 



4* 



REV. S. SMITH—A. FONBLANQUE, 

AND 

DOUGLAS JERROLD. 



" Hard words tliatliavo been 
So nimble, and so lull of subtle flame, 
As if that every one from whom they camo 
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest." 

" His fine wit 
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it." 



Beaumoht. 



Shellv. 



" I shall talk nothing but crackers and fire-works to-night." 

Ben Jonson. 

" Hold out, ye guiltie and ye galled hides, 

And meet my far-fetched stripes with waiting sides." 

Hall's Satires. 

The present age is destined, for the first time in the his- 
tory of literature and of the human mind, to display Wit 
systematically and habitually employed by the great majori- 
ty of its possessors in the endeavour to promote the public- 
good. While great satirists like Juvenal and Horace have 
been " on virtue's side," they shone all the more for being 
exceptions to the fraternity. Not only the vices, the follies, 
the vanities, the weaknesses of our fellow-creatures, have 
furnished the best subjects for the shafts of wit ; but little 
self-denial was practised with reference to the nobler feelings 
and actions of humanity. To take a flight directly to 
modern times, let us alight at once upon the days of Charles 
the Second, when the laugh was raised indiscriminately at 
vice or virtue, honesty or knavery, wisdom or folly. What- 
ever faults such great writers as Swift and Butler, or Moli- 
ere and Voltaire, may sometimes have committed in direct- 
ing their ridicule amiss, their intentions, at least, were re- 
formatory, and therefore their errors are not to be compared 



RKV. SY'DNKY SMITH, ETC. 16'\ 

with the licentious poison which spurted glistening from the 
pens of Wycherly, Farquhar, Congreve, and Vanbrugh 
who had no noble aim or object, or good intention, whether 
sound or self-deluding — but whose vicious instinct almost 
invariably prompted them to render heartless vice and 
wanton dishonesty as attractive and successful as possible, 
and make every sincere and valuable quality seem dull or 
ridiculous. All the great writers of Fables — writers who 
are among the best instructors, and noblest benefactors of 
their species — have been humorists rather than wits, and do 
not properly come into the question. 

Up to the present period, the marked distinction be- 
tween humour and wit has been, that the former evinced a 
pleasurable sympathy ; the latter, a cutting derision. Hu- 
mour laughed with humanity ; wit ot all things. But now, 
for the first time, as a habit and a principle, do all the es- 
tablished wits, and the best rising wits, walk arm-in-arm in 
the common recognition of a moral aim. The very band- 
ing together of a number of genuine and joyous wits in the 
" London Charivari," instead of all being at " daggers 
drawn" with each other in the old way, is in itself a per- 
fectly novel event in the history of letters ; and when this 
fact is taken in conjunction with the unquestionable good 
feeling and service in the cause of justice and benevolence 
displayed by its writers, the permanent existence and ex- 
tensive success of such a periodical is one of the most strik- 
ing and encouraging features of the age. 

The strongest instances of the commencement of this 
change are to be found in the writings of Hazlitt, Charles 
Lamb, and Leigh Hunt. No man has left such a number 
of axiomatic sayings, at once brilliant and true, as Hazlitt. 
That they are mixed up with many things equally brilliant, 
and only half-true, or perhaps not true at all, is not the 
question : he always meant them for honest truths, and in- 
variably had a definite moral purpose in view. Perhaps in 
the works of Charles Lamb, and the prose writings of Leigh 
Hunt, wit and humour may be said to unite, and for the 
production of a moral effect. An anxiety to advance the 
truth and promote the happiness, the right feeling, the 
knowledge, and the welfare of mankind, is conspicuous in 
all the principal essays of these three authors. That the 
same thing should ever come to be said of wits in general 



164 REV. SYDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FONBLANQUE, 

shows that the good feeling of mankind has at length en- 
listed on its side those brilliant " shots" who had previously 
refused all union or co-operation, and who, having been 
equally unsparing of friend or foe, rendered every noble 
action liable to be made ridiculous, and therefore, to a cer- 
tain extent, impeded both private and public improvement 
and elevation of character. It should here be observed 
that the office of the poetical Satirist appears to have died out, 
not because there are no such men, (as the world always 
says when no " such" man appears,) but becaute there is 
no demand for him. 

The three writers, each of whose names possess a pe- 
culiar lustre of its own, have a lively sense of the humor- 
ous, but are not in themselves great as humorists. Mr. 
Jerrold is the only one of the three who exercises any of 
the latter faculty in a consecutive and characterizing form, 
and even with him it is apt to ramble widely, and continu- 
ally emerges in caustic or sparkling dialogue and repartee, 
which are his forte. 

Tiie Reverend Sydney Smith gives a laconic account of 
the commencement of his own career in the Preface to his 
published works, and as his own words usually " defy com- 
petition," the best plan will be to let him speak for himself 

" When first I went into the Church," snys he, " I had a curacy in the middle of 
Salisbury Plain. The Squire of the paiish took a fancy to me, and requested me to 
go witli his son to reside at the University of Weimar; before we could get there, 
Germany became the seat of war. and in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh, 
where I remained five years. The principles of the French Revolution were then 
fully afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more violent and agitated state of soci- 
ety. Among the first persons with whom I became acquainted were, Lord Jeti'rey, 
Lord Murray, (late Lord Advocate for Scotland,) and Lord Brougham ; all of them 
maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little too liberal for the dynasty of 
Dundas, then exercising a supreme jiowcr over the northern division of the island. 

" One day we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth story or flat in Eucclcugh- 
place, the elevated residence of the then Mr. JelTrey. I proposed that we should set 
up a Review; this was acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed Editor, and 
remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the Edinburgh Review. 
The motto I proposed for the Review was, 

' Tenui imisam meditamw avena. ' 
' We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal.' 

But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our present grave 
motto from Pu6Z(«.s- Syriis, of whom none of us had. I am sure, ever read a single line; 
and so began what has since turned out to be a very important and able journal. 
When I left Edinburgh, it fell into the stronger hands of Lord Jefl^rey and Lord 
Brougham, and reached the highest point of populai-ity and success." 

After giving various good reasons for a high appreciation 
of the " Edinburgh Review" at the time it started, Sydney 
Smith says — 



AND DOUGLAS JERROLD. J 65 

" I see very little in my Reviews to alter or repent of; I always endeavoured to 
fight against evil ; and what I thought evil then, I think evil now, I am heartily glad 
that all our disiiualitying laws for religious opinions are abolished, and I see nothing 
in such measures but unmixed good and real increase of strength to our Establish- 
ment." 

The few words with which he introduces the celebrated 
" Letters of Peter Plymley" (which were so very instru- 
mental in assisting the Catholic emancipation by extreme 
ridicule of all needless alarms upon the occasion) are inir^- 
itable ; — 

" Somehow or another, it came to be conjectured that I was the author : I have 
ahcays denied it ; but finding that I deny it in vain, I have thought it might be as well to 
include the Letters in this Collection .- tliey had an immense circulation at the time, and 
I tliink above 20,000 copies were sold." 

As displaying the political and social opinions of Syd- 
ney Smith, the following may suffice : — 

" It is always considered as a piece of impertinence in England, if a man of less 
than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects ; 
and in addition he was sure at that time to be assailed with all the Billingsgate of the 
French Revolution — Jacobin, Leveller, Atheist, Deist, ^ocinian. Incendiary, Regi- 
cide, were the gentlest appellations used ; and the man who breathed a syllable 
against the senseless bigotry of the two Georges, or hinted at the abominable tyranny 
and persecution exercised upon Catholic Ireland, was shunned as unfit for the rela- 
tions of social life. A'ot a murmur against any abuse was permitted ; to say a word 
against the suitorcide delays of the Court of Chancery, or the cruel punishments of 
the Game laws, or against any abuse which a rich man inflicted or a poor man suf- 
fered, was treason against the Plousiecracy , and was bitterly and steadily resented." 

"We believe," says the 'Times,' in a notice of the 
works of Sydney Smith, " that the concession of full de- 
fence to prisoners by counsel, is a boon for which humanity 
is in great measure indebted to the effect produced upon 
the public mind by his vigorous article in the ' Edinburgh 
Review,' for December, 1828." Previous to this a man 
might be hanged before he had been half heard. 

Something remains to be added to this : Sydney Smith 
is opposed to the Ballot, and the Penny Postage, and is in 
favour of capital punishment — apparently preferring retribu- 
tion to reformation. His feelings are always generous and 
sincere, whatever may be thought of his judgment in certain 
things, and his Sermons are replete with pure doctrine, tol- 
eration, and liberality of sentiment. The Irish Catholics 
ought to erect a monument to him, with his statue on the 
top — looking very grave, but with the hands " holding both 
his sides," and the tablets at the base covered with bas-relief 
selected from the graphic pages of Peter Plymley. 

Although wit is the great predominating characteristic 



106 REV. SVDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FONBLANQUE, 

of the writings of Sydney Smith, the finest and most original 
humour is not unfrequently displayed. Under this latter 
head may be classed his review in the " Edinburgh " of Dr. 
Langford's " Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane 
Society." The review is so laconic that we give it entire. 

" An accident, which happened to Ihe gentleman engaged in reviewing this Ser- 
mon, proves, in tlie most striking manner, the importance of this charity for restoring 
to life persons in whom the vital power is suspended. He was discovered witli Dr. 
Longford's discourse lying open before him in a state of the most profound sleep; 
from which he could not, by any means, be awakened for a great length of lime. I5y 
attending, however, to the rules prescribed by the Humane Society, flinging in the 
smoke of tobacco, applying hot flannels, and carefully rcmoviiig t/ic discourse itself to a 
great distance., the critic was restored to his diconsolate brothers. 

" The only account he could give of himself was, that he remembers reading on, 
regularly, till he came to the following pathetic description of a drowned tradesman ; 
beyond which he recollects nothing."* 

This is the whole of the review, for the quotation follows, 
so tumid, and drawling, and affected, and common-place, 
that we forbear to give it, lest the same accident recorded 
by the critic should occur to the present reader. The 
"Letters to Archdeacon Singleton" are excellent; and 
display both wit and humour as well as reason. One of the 
happiest " turns '"' among many, is that which he gives to the 
threat that if clergymen agitate any questions affecting the 
patronage of the bishops, the democratic Philistines w\\\ 
come down upon the inferior clergy and sweep them all 
away together. "Be it so," says Sydney Smith ; "I am 
quite ready to be swept away when the time comes. Every 
body has his favourite death ; some delight in apoplexy, 
and others prefer miasmus. I would infinitely rather be 
crushed by democrats, than, under the plea of the public good, 
be mildly and blandly absorbed by bishops. "t The illustra- 
tive anecdote which follows this, is inimitable, but we can- 
not afford space for it. 

Albany Fonblanque was intended for the bar, and be- 
came a student of the Middle Temple. He was a pupil of 
Chitty, the special pleader, and from his acuteness and 
promptitude in seizing upon certain prominent features of a 
case, great expectations were no doubt entertained of the 
brightness of his future career in the law. But meantime 
he had made the discovery that he could write on current 
topics of interest, and his fellow-students also discovered 
that what he wrote was a keen hit — " a palpable hit." He 

* Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Second edition, vol. i. p. 25. 
t First Letter to Archdeacoiv Singleton. Works, vol. iii. p. 195. 



AND DOUGLAS JEKROLD. 167 

soon proceeded to politics. Castlereagh's " Six Acts " 
made a political writer of him. Totally neglecting the 
"declarations" and "pleas" himself, and the cause of 
neglect if not also of " wit" in others, Albany Fonblanque 
incited the students in Mr. Chitty's otfice to the discussion 
of the questions of the day, greatly to the delight and satia- 
faciion of all parties, till a brother pupil occasionally 
exclaiming in his gleeful edification, " What a pity it is 
that some one does not say that in print .'" the idea of 
actually trying it, occurred to the mind of Fonblanque. He 
wrote " an article,"— it produced an immediate " sensation," 
— and discovering at the same moment, how very much he 
disliked the law, and how very much he should prefer litera- 
ture and sharp-shooting, he hurried away from Mr. Chitty's 
dusky office, and threw himself into the brightest current of 
the many-branching many-mouthed periodical press. 

But the study of the law from which Fonblanque had so 
gladly emancipated his mind, had still been of great value 
to the subsequent management of his powers. It served to 
check the natural excesses of a vivid fancy, and to render 
him searching, acute, logical, and clear-headed, amidst con- 
tradictory or confusing statements and reasonings. Those 
who have read any of Sydney Smith's lucubrations in favour 
of the punishment of death, should read Albany Fonblan- 
(jue's articles, entitled " Capital Punishment,"* and "Jus- 
tice and Mercy. "t A brief extract will serve to show the 
tone adopted in the former, in which, let us observe, what a 
fine head and heart had Sir William Meredith, and do him 
honour who, fifty years ago, in the very " thick" of all the 
hanging, considered so right and necessary by every body 
else, uplifted his voice against its vindictive inutility. Lord 
Brougham thinks — that is, in 1831, he thought — differently. 

" ' Even in crimes which are seldom or never pardoned,' observed Sir William 
Meredith, half a century ago, 'death is no prevention. Housebreakers, forgers, and 
coiners, are sure to be han^'ed ; yet housebreaking, forgery, and coining, are the very 
crimes which are oftenost committed. Strange it is, that in the case of blood, of 
which we ought to be most tender, we sliould still go on against reason, and against 
experience, to make unavailing slaughter of our fellow-creatures.' 

" ' We foresee,' observes Fonblanque, ' that Lord Brougham and Vaus will be a 
prodigious favourite with the Church. His observation ' that there was nothing in 
til'! Bibla prohibitory of the punishment of death for other crimes than murder,' re- 
minds us of the reason which the Newgate Ordinary, in Jonathan Wild, gives for his 
choice of i)unch, lliat it is a liquor nowhere spoken ill of in Scripture. 

* " England under Seven Administrations," vol. ii. p. 156. 
t Ibid. vol. i. p. 194. 



168 REV. SYDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FONBLANQUE, 

" The common phrase, the severity of punishment, is inaccurate, and misleading. 
Of our punishments no one quality can be predicated. They vary with humour and 
circumstance. Sometimes lliey are sanguinary, sometimes gentle ; now it is called 
jusltice, anon mercy. If intention were to be inferred from effect, it would be sup- 
posed that the policy of tlie law had been to improve crime by a sort of gymnastic 
exercise. When extraordinary activity is observed in any limb of crime, the law im- 
mediately corrects the partiahty by a smart application of the rod ; the ingenuity of 
the rogues then takes another direction which has hitherto had repose and indulgence, 
the law after a time pursues it in that quarter with a terrible chastisement ; a third 
is then tried, and so on. By this process all the muscles of crime are in turn exer- 
cised, and the body felonious rendered supple, agile, and vigorous. There is as much 
fashion in what is termed justice as in bonnets or sleeves. The judge's cap is indeed 
as capricious as the ladies'. Sometimes the trimmings are blood-red, sometimes the 
sky-blue of mercy is in vogue. One assize there is a run of death on the horse- 
stealers ; another, the sheep-stealers have their turn ; last winter, arson was the 
capital rage ; now, death for forgery is said to be coming in again — ne quid iiimis is 
the maxim. By this system it has come to pass that our rogues are accomplished in 
all branches of felony, and practised in resources beyond the rogues of all other 
countries in the world ; and our criminals may be affirmed to be worthy of our 
Legislators."* 

Mr. Fonblanque's articles on the magistracy, and par- 
ticularly the one in favour of stipendiary magistrates, in 
which he opposes Sydney Smith in the " Edinburgh Re- 
view," (who chiefly objected to the abuses which would 
ensue among the " rural judges,") are also good specimens 
of his style. To see edge-tools playing with each other, 
adds a considerable zest to the argument. 

" It is no objection to town Judges that they are in tlie pay of Government, yet it 
is an inseparable one to rural Judges. The Frenchman, according to Joe Miller, who 
observed that an Englishman recovered from a fever al\er eating a rediicrring, ad- 
ministered one to the first of his fellow-countrymen whom he found labouring under 
that disease, and having found that it killed him, noted in his tablet thnt a red-herring 
cures an Englishman of a fever, but it kills a Frenchman. So, we must note, ac- 
cording to the ' Edinburgh Reviewer,' that pay is wholesome for Judges in town, but 
it is bad for Judges in the country. Bay in tov/n is esteemed the very salt of place, 
the preservative of honesty which keeps the meat sweet and wholesome, and causes 
it to set the tooth of calumny and time at defiance. There is the * * * who holds 
out toughly, like a piece of old junk. What has made him such an everlasting ofliccr .' 
The salt, the pay. When we want to make a good and competent authority, what 
do we do with him .' Souse him in salary ; pickle him well with pay. The other 
day, how we improved the Judges, by giving them another dip in the public pan ! 
But pay, though it cures great Judges, corrupts small ones. Our Reviewer says so, 
and we must believe it. A little pay, like a little learning, is a dangerous thing — 
drink deep, or touch not the Exchequer spring !"t 

The " reply " of the Reverend Sydney Smith to the 
foregoing, would now be well worth reading, but we are not 
aware that any appeared. 

Douglas Jerrold's father was the manager of a country 
theatre. He did not, however, " take to the stage," owing 
perhaps to his inherent energies, which causing him to feel 
little interest in fanciful heroes, impelled him to seek his 
fortune amidst the actual storms and troubles of life. He 

* Ibid. vol. ii. p. 158. | Ibid. vol. ii. p. 85. 



AND DOUGLAS JERROLD. 169 

f 

went on board a man-of-war as a midshipman at eleven 
years of age. On board of this same vessel was Clarkson 
Stanfield, a midshipman also. The ship was paid off in two 
years' time from Jerrold's joining her ; Stanfield and he 
parted, and never saw each other again till sixteen years 
afterwards, when they met on the stage of Drury Lane 
theatre. It was on the night that Jerrold's " Rent Day " 
was produced. 

But to return to Jerrold's early days : his sea-life beino- 
at an end, he found himself, at the age of thirteen, with " all 
London" before him "where to choose" — not what he 
thought best, but what he could obtain. He learnt printing ; 
and followed this during three or four years ; he then began 
to write dramas for minor theatres. He met with more than 
what is usually considered success at the Surry theatre, 
where he was the first who started, or rather revived, what 
is now known as the English " domestic drama." Li speak- 
ing of it somewhere he says — " a poor thing, but mine own." 
It was certainly greatly in advance of the gory melodramas 
and gross extravagances then in vogue. The " Rent Day " 
was produced in 1831 or 32 ; and was followed by "Nell 
Gwynne," "The Wedding Gown," "The Housekeeper," 
&-C. &c. All these were in two acts, according to the ab- 
surd legal compulsion with regard to minor theatres, but 
which he endeavoured to write in the spirit of five. 

Mr. Jerrold's position as a dramatist will receive atten- 
tion in another portion of this work ; he is at present chiefly 
dealt with as a writer of characteristic prose fictions, essays, 
jeux d'esprits, and miscellaneous periodical papers. About 
the year J 836 he published " Men of Character," in three 
volumes, most of which had previously appeared in " Black- 
wood;" and he also contributed to the "New Monthly" 
during two or three years. In 1842 appeared his " Bubbles 
of the Day," soon followed by a collection of essays, &,c., 
entitled " Cakes and Ale;" and in 1843 " Punch's Letters 
to his Son." Mr. Jerrold has also written heaps of political 
articles, criticisms, and "leaders" without number. His 
last productions, up to the present date, are the " Story of a 
Feather," published in a series by the " Punch," and the 
" Chronicles of Clovernook," and " The folly of the Sword " 
in the " Illuminated Magazine," which he edits. 

Of writings so full of force and brightness to make them- 



170 KUV. SYDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FON f.LANQUE, 

selves seen and felt, so full of thoroughgoing jnanly earnest- 
ness for the truth and the right — and so interspersed with 
tart sayings and bitter irony, touched up with quills of caus- 
tic, in attacks of all abuses, viciousness, and selfish depravity 
— writings so easily accessible, so generally read, and about 
which there exist no disputes, and seldom any difference of 
opinion, it is impossible to say enough without saying much 
more than the majority need, and the only safe proceedinr^ 
is obviously that of saying very little. 

"Brevity" is no more " the soul of wit" than a short 
stick is the essence of comedy ; it must not, therefore, be 
fancied that in uttering only the fewest words about such 
productions as " The Bubbles of the Day," the "Prisoners 
of War," &c., we think the best comn)cnt has been made 
upon them. But in truth they are of a kind that require to 
be read, and seen, and felt, rather than to be discoursed 
about. Mr. Jerrold never writes any thing without a good 
leading idea, and this he works out chiefly by sharp dialogues, 
and striking exhibitions of truthful, clearly-defined, valuable 
characters, all full of life, and of themselves. He is not a 
good hand at the conduct of a story, and worse in the con- 
struction of a plot. In the " Bubbles of the Day" there is 
wit and character enough for two or three five-act comedies; 
and there is not story enough, nor action enough for a good 
one-act drama. He always succeeds, in spite of this utter 
deficiency, which is fatal to every body else. Nothing can 
more forcibly attest the presence of other striking powers. 
His wit, and his abundance of lifelike character, are irre- 
sistible. Except, perhaps, a very few productions, such as 
the beautiful and melancholy sketch of " The Painter of 
Ghent," — the " Lord of Peiresc," and some genial criticisms 
and miscellanies, all his works may be regarded as pungent 
moral satires. Thrown early upon life — a mere child, with 
all the world before him and around — his heart and brain 
still tumultuous, fresh from the bleak seas — with nothing but 
those two little unaided hands to work out his own immediate 
maintenance and future fortunes, and without a guide, ex- 
cept his own " natural promptings," Douglas Jerrold could 
not fail to see and suffer, and accumulate experience of a 
kind to turn much of the " milk of human kindness" into 
gall, and the hopefulness of youth and manhood into shadows 
and sorrow. But nothing ever quelled his energies and his 



AND DOlKiLAS JERROLD. 171 

belief in good; and a passage through early life, of a kind 
sufficient to have made a score of Misanthropes, and half-a- 
dozen yet more selfish Apathies, — only served to keep alive 
his energies, and to excite him to renewed indignation at all 
the wrongs done in the world, and to unceasing contest with 
all sorts of oppressions and evil feelings. In waging this 
battle " against odds," it is curious to observe how entirely 
he has been "let alone" in his course. This may be, in 
part, attributable to the greater portion of his writings ap- 
pearing in periodicals, which are not generally so fiercely 
dealt with by adverse opinions, as when a work comes com- 
pact in its offences before them ; and partly to the non- 
attachment of their just weight to dramatic productions : 
but it is also attributable to the fact, that while he is known 
to be thoroughly honest, outspoken, and fearless, he has at 
his command such an armoury in his wit, and such " a 
power " of bitterness in his spleen, that neither one nor 
many have ever relished the chances of war in crossing his 
path with hostility. 

The three writers who form the subject of the present 
paper, are so full of points and glances, so saturated with 
characteristics, that you may dip into any of their volumes, 
where the book fully opens of itself, and you shall find some- 
thing "just like the author." The Rev. Sydney Smith is 
always pleased to be so "pleasant," that it is extremely 
difficult to stop ; and it is remarkable that he clears off his 
jokes so completely as he goes, either by a sweeping hand, 
or by carrying on such fragments as he wants to form a 
bridge to the next one, that you never pause in reading him 
till fairly obliged to lay down the book. Albany Fonblanque 
very often gives you pause amidst his pleasantries, many of 
which, nay, most of which, are upon subjects of politics, or 
jurisprudence, or the rights and wrongs of our social doings, 
so that the laugh often stops in mid-volley, and changes into 
weighty speculation, or inward applause. In his combined 
powers of the brilliant and argumentative, the narrative and 
epigrammatic, and his matchless adroitness in illustrative 
quotation and reference, Fonblanque stands alone. Douglas 
Jerrold is seldom disposed to be " pleasant " — his merriment 
is grim — he does not shake your sides so often as shake you 
by the shoulders — as he would say, " See here now ! — look 
there now ! — do you know what you are doing ! — is this 



172 REV. SYDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FONBLANQUE, 

what you think of your fellow-creatures?" A little of his 
writing goes a great way. You stop very often, and do not 
return to the book for another dose, till next week, or so. — 
The exceptions to this are chiefly in his acted comedies, 
where there is a plentiful admixture of brilliant levity and 
stinging fun ; but in all else he usually reads you a lesson of 
a very trying kind. Even his writings in "Punch" give 
you more of the baton, than the beverage " in the eye." — 
Sydney Smith has continually written articles for the pure 
enjoyment and communication of fun; Fonblanque never; 
Jerrold never, except on the stage — and that was probably 
only as " matter of income," rather than choice. Sydney 
Smith, in hostility, is an overwhelming antagonist; his ar- 
guments are glittering with laughter, and well balanced with 
good sense ; they flow onwards with the ease and certainty 
of a current above a bright cascade ; he piles up his merri- 
ment like a grotesque mausoleum over his enemy, and so 
compactly and regularly that you feel no fear of its toppling 
over by any retort. Fonblanque seems not so much to fight 
" on editorial perch," as to stand with an open Code of So- 
cial Laws in one hand, and a two-edged sword in the other, 
waving the latter slowly to and fro with a grave face, while 
dictating his periods to the laughing amanuensis. As Jer- 
rold's pleasantest works are generally covert satires, so his 
open satires are galling darts, or long bill-hook spears that 
go right through the mark, and divide it — pull it nearer for 
a " final eye," or thrust it over the pit's edge. 

All these writers have used their wit in the cause of 
humanity, and honestly, according to their several views of 
what was best, and most needful to be done, or done away 
with. They have nobly used, and scarcely ever abused the 
dangerous, powerful, and tempting weapon of the faculty of 
wit. Some exceptions must be recorded. Sydney Smith 
has several times suflTered his sense of the ridiculous to " run 
away " with his better feelings ; and in subjects which were 
in themselves of a painful, serious, or shocking nature, he 
has allowed an absurd contingent circumstance to get the 
upper hand, to the injury, or discomfiture, or oflfence, of na- 
ture and society. Such was the fun he made of the lockino- 
people in railway-carriages upon the occasion of the friaht- 
ful catastrophe at Versailles. Fonblanque has continually 
boiled and sparkled round the extreme edge of the same 



AND DOUGLAS JERROLD. 173 

offence ; but we think he has never actually gushed over. — 
The same may be nearly said of Jerrold, though we think 
he has been betrayed by that scarcely resistible good or evil 
genius " a new subject " into sereral papers which he had 
much better never have written. One — the worst — should 
be mentioned : it is the " Metaphysician and the Maid."* 

No doubt can exist as to who the bad satire was meant 
for. This was of itself sufficiently bad in the et tu Brute 
sense ; but besides the personal hit, it has graver errors. If 
the paper had been meant to ridicule pretended thinkers, 
and besotted dreamers, those who prattle about motives, and 
springs, and "intimate knowledge" charlatan philosophers, 
or even well-meaning transce«dentalists " who darken 
knowledge ;" and if it had also been intended to laugh at a 
man for a vulgar amour, the mistaking a mere sensuality for 
a sentiment, or a doll for a divinity — all were so far very 
well and good. The "hit" at a man desperately in love 
who was in the middle of an essay on " Free Will," is all 
fair, and fine wit. But here the sincere and earnest thinker 
is ridiculed ; — a well-known sincere and profound thinker 
having been selected to stand for the class; — his private 
feelings are ridiculed (his being in a state of illusion as to 
the object, is too common to serve as excuse for the attack) 
— his passion for abstract truth is jested upon, and finally 
his generosity and unworldly disinterestedness. But the 
" true man's hand " misgave him in doing this deed. The 
irresistible "new subject" was not so strong as his own 
heart, and the influence of the very author he was, in this 
brief instance, turning into ridicule, was so full upon him, 
that while intending to write a burlesque upon " deep think- 
ing," he actually wrote as follows, — 

" lie alone, wlio has for months, nay, years, lived upon great imaginings — whose 
subject hath been apart of his blood — a throb of his pulse — hath scarcely faded from his 
brain as he lialh fallen to sleep — hath waked witli him — hath, in his squalid study, 
glorified even poverty — liath walked with liim abroad, and l)y its ermobling presence, 
raised him above the prejudice, the little spite, the studied negligence, the sturdy 
wrong, that in his out-door life sneer upon and elbow him — he alone, can understand 
the calm, deep, yet, serene joy felt by * * * " 

The foregoing noble and affecting passage — the climax 
of which is forced into a dull and laboured absurdity — is 
more than a parody, it is an unintentional imitation derived 
from some dim association with the well-known passage of 

* " Cakes and Ale," vol ii. p. 175. 



174 REV. SYDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FONBLANQUE, 

Hazlitt's, commencing with — " There are moments in tlie 
life of a solitary thinker, wliich are to him what the evening 
of some great victory is to the conqueror — milder triumphs 
long remembered with truer and deeper delight," &c.* We 
leave these two passages with Mr. Jerrold for his own most 
serious consideration ; — the original terminating with a na- 
tural climax — his own so abominably. It is probable that 
we could say nothing more strongly in reprehension than Mr. 
Jerrold will say to himself As for the satire upon the weak- 
nesses or follies ofthe strongest-minded men when in love, the 
" Liber Amoris" left nothing to be added to its running 
commentary of melancholy irony upon itself and its author. 

It is customary in speaking of great wits, to record and 
enjoy their " last ;" but there are, at this time, so many of 
Sydney Smith's "last" in the shape of remarks on the in- 
solvent States of America, that it is difficult to choose. If, 
however, we were obliged to make selection for " our own 
private eating," we should point to the bankrupt army march- 
ing to defend their plunder, with care aliaio engraved upoti 
the trumpets. For the voice of a trumpet can be made the 
most defying and insulting of all possible sounds, and in this 
instance even the very insolence ofthe " special pleader" is 
stolen — (xrc alieno, another man's sarcdf 

Mr. Fonblanque's " last " are so regularly seen in the 
" Examiner," and there will in all probability, have been so 
many of them before these pages are published, that we 
must leave the reader to cater for himself; and more par- 
ticularly as it would be impossible to please" all parties" 
with tranchant political jokes upon matters of immediate in- 
terest and contest. But nothing can more forcibly prove the 
true value of Mr. Fonblanque's wit than the fact that all the 
papers collected in " England under Seven Administrations " 
were written upon passing events ; that most of the events 
are passed, and the wit remains. A greater disadvantage no 
writings ever had to encounter ; yet they are read with 
pleasure and admiration ; and, in many instances, yet but 
too fresh and vigorous, with improvement, and renewed won- 
der that certain abuses should be of so long life. 

Mr. Jerrold's two " last" we may select from the" His- 
tory of a Feather," and the "Folly of the Sword." In the 

* Hazlitt's " Principles of Human Aetion." 

t It also suggests tlie Latin idiom of are alieno crire, — a new way to pay okl debts. 



AND DOUGLAS JERROLD. 175 

first we shall allude to the biting satire of the Countess of 
Bltishrose, who, being extremely beautiful, was very proud 
and unfeeling towards the poor ; but after over-dancing her- 
self one night at a ball, she got the erysipelas, which spoiled 
her face, and she then became an angel of benevolence who 
could never stir abroad without " walking in a shower of 
blessings." In the second we tind the following remark on 
war and glory. 

" Now look aside, and contemphite God's image with a musket. What a fine- 
looking tiling is war '. Yet, dress it as wo may, dress and feather it, daub it with 
gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it — whnt is it, nine times out of ten, 
but Murder in uniform ? Cain taking the Serjeant's shilling.' * * * Yet, oh man 
of war ! at this very moment are you shi inking, withering, like an aged giant. The 
fingers of Opinion have been busy at your plumes — you arc not the feathered thing 
you were ; and then this little tube, the goose-quill, has sent its silent shots into your 
huge anatomy ; and the corroding Ikk, even whilst you look at it, and think it shines 
80 brightly, is eating with a tooth of iron into your sword !" 

Our last extract shall be from Sydney Smith's celebrated 
Letters of Peter Plyinley, and on a subject now likely to oc- 
cupy the public mind still more than at the time it was pen- 
'ned : — 

" Our conduct to Ireland, during the whole of this war, has been that of a man 
■ who subscribes to hospitals, weeps ut charity sermons, carries out broth and blankets 
; to beggars, and then comes home and beats his wife and children. VVe had compas- 
sion for the victims of all other oppression and injustice, except our own. If Switzer 
land was threatened, away went a Treasury Clerk with a hundred thousand pounds 
for Switzerland ; large bags of money were kept constantly under sailing orders ; upon 
the slightest demonstration towards Naples, down went Sir William Hamilton upon 
(his knees, and begged for the love of St. Januarius they would help us off with a little 
money ; all the arts of Machiavel were resorted to, to persuade Europe to borrow; 
'troops were sent oft" in all directions to save the Catholic and Protestant world ; the 
_ Poj)e himself v/as guarded by a regiment of English dragoons ; if the Grand Lama had 
been at hand, he would have had another ; every Catholic Clergyman, who had the 
good fortune to l)e neither English nor Irish, was immediately provided with lodging, 
soup, crucifix, missal, chapel-beads, relics, and holy water; if Turks had landed, 
'Turks would have received an order from the Treasury for coffee, opium, korans, and 
fseraglios. In the midst of all this fury of saving and defending, this crusade for con- 
science and Christianity, there was an universal agreement among all descriptions of 
'peojile to continue every species of internal persecution ; to deny at home every just 
riglit that had been denied before ; to pvmnnel poor Dr. Abraham Eees and his Dis- 
senters ; and to treat the unhappy Catholics of Ireland as if their tongues were mute, 
Jtheir heels cloven, their nature brutal, and designedly subjected by Providence to 
their Orange masters. 

" How would my admirable brother, the Rev. Abraham Plymley, like to he 
(marched to a Catholic chapel, to be sprinkled with the sanctitied contents of a pump, 
to hear a number of false ([uantities in the Latin tongue, and to see a number of per- 
sons occupied in making right angles upon the breast and forehead? And if all this 
would give you so much pain, what right have you to march Catholic soldiers to a 
place of worshiji, where there is ito asper^^ion, no rectangular gestures, and where, they 
understand erery ward they hear, having first, in order to get him to enlist, made a 
solemn promise to the contrary? Can you wonder, after this, that the Catholic 
priest stops the recruiting in Ireland, as he is now doing to a most alarming degree ?" 
5 

The influence of these three writers has been extensive, 
^and vigorously beneficial — placing their politics out of the 



176 REV. SYDNEY SMITH, ALBANY FONBLANQUE, ETC 

question. Their aqua fortis and " laughing gas" have ex- 
ercised alike a purificatory office ; their championship has 
been strong on the side of social ameliorations and happy 
progress. The deep importance of national education on a 
proper system has been finely advocated by each in his pecu- 
liar way — Sydney Smith by excessive ridicule of the old and 
present system ; Fonblanque by administering a moral cane 
and caustic to certain pastors and masters and ignorant peda- 
gogues of all kinds ; and Jerrold by such tales as the " Lives 
of Brown, Jones, and Robinson," (in vol. ii. of" Cakes and 
Ale,") and by various essays. If in the conflict of parties 
the Reverend Sydney Smith and Mr. Fonblanque have once 
or twice been sharply handled, they might reasonably have 
expected much M'orse As for vague accusations of levity 
and burlesque, and want of " a well-regulated mind," and 
trifling and folly, those things are always said of all such men. 
It is observable that very dull men and men incapable of wit — 
either in themselves, or of the comprehension of it in others 
— invariably call every witty man, and every witty saying, 
which is not quite agreeable to themselves, by the termjlip- 
pant. Let the wits and humorists be consoled ; they have 
the best of it, and the dull ones know it 



II 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

AND 

LEIGH HUNT. 



" I judge him for a rectified spirit, 
By many revolutions of discourse, 
(In Ills briglit reason's influence) refined 
From all the tartarous moods of common men ; 
Bearing the nature and similitude 
Of a right heavenly hody ; most severe 
In fashion and collection of himself ; 
And, then, as clear and confident as Jove." 

Ben Jonson 

"You will see H — t ; one of those happy souls 
Which are the salt o' tlie earth, and without whom 
This world would smell like what it is — a tomb." 

Shellev. 
" Moat debonnaire, in courtesy supreme ; 
Loved of the mean, and honored by the great; 
Ne'er dashed by Fortune, nor cast down by Fate ; 
To present and to after times a theme." 

Drummond. 

These two laurelled veterans, whose lives are clad with 
the eternal youth of poesy, have been so long before the pub- 
lic, and their different and contrasted claims may be thought 
to have been so thoroughly settled, that it will, perhaps, as 
a first impression, be considered that there was no necessity 
for including them in this work. They are, however, intro- 
duced as highly important connecting links between past 
and present periods ; as the outlivers of many storms ; the 
originators of many opinions and tastes; the sufferers of 
odium, partly for their virtues, and in some respects for 
their perversities ; and the long wounded but finally victo- 
rious experiencers of popular changes of mind during many 
years. If, therefore, it should still be thought that nothing 
very new remains to be said of them, it is submitted that at 
least there are some truths concerning both, which have 
never yet been fairly brought into public notice. 

9 



178 WILLIAM WORDS V.ORTII, 

When Mr. Wordsworth first steed before the world as a 
pcet, he might as well, for the sorriness of his reception, 
have stood before the world as a prophet. In some such 
position, perhaps, it may be said he actually did stand ; and 
he had prophet's fare in a shower of stones. For several 
o-enerations, had the cadences of our poets (so called) moved 
to them along the ends of their fingers. Their language 
had assumed a conventional elegance, spreading smoothly 
into pleonasms or clipped nicely into elisions. The point 
of an antithesis had kept perpetual sentry upon the ' final 
pause ;' and while a spurious imagination made a Name 
stand as a personification, Observation only looked out of 
window ("with extensive view" indeed , . " from China to 
Peru !") and refused very positively to take a step out of 
doors. A long and dreary decline of poetry it was, from the 
high-rolling sea of Dryden, or before Dryden, when Waller 
first began to " improve" (bona verba !) our versification — 
down to the time of Wordsworth. Milton's far-oft" voice, in 
the meantime, was a trumpet, which the singing-birds could 
not take a note from : his genius was a lone island in a re- 
mote sea, and singularly uninfluential on his contemporaries 
and immediate successors. The decline sloped on. And 
that edition of the poets which was edited by Dr. Johnson 
for popular uses, and in which he and his publishers did ad- 
visedly obliterate from the chronicles of the people, every 
poet before Cowley, and force the Chaucers, Spensers, and 
Draytons to give place to " Ponifret's Choice " and the 
" Art of Cookery," — is a curious proof of poetical and criti- 
cal degradation. " Every child is graceful," observes Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, with a certain amount of truth, " until he 
has learnt to dance." We had learned to dance with a ven- 
geance — we could not move except we danced — the French 
school pir( netted in us most anti-nationaliy. The ase of 
Shakspeare and our great ancestral writers had grown to he 
rococo — thry were men of genius and deficient in ' taste,' 
but wc were wits and classics — we exceeded in civilization, 
and wore wigs. It was net, however, lo end so. 

Looking back to the experiences of nations, a national 
literature is seldom observed to recover its voice after an 
absolute declension : the scattered gleaners may be singing 
in the stubble, but the great song of the harvest sounds but 
once. Into the philosophy of this fact, it would take too 



AND i,r:if;n hunt. ]T9 

much space to inquire. That genius comes as a periodical 
effluence, and in dependence on unmanifest causes, is the 
confession of grave thinkers, rather than fanciful specula- 
tors ; and perhaps if the Roman empire, for instance, could 
have endured in strength, and held its mighty breath until 
the next .ide, some Latin writer would have emerged from 
the onward flood of inspiration which was bearing Dante to 
the world's wide shores. Unlike Dante, indeed, would 
have been that writer — for no author, however influential on 
his contemporaries, can be perfectly independent himself of 
their influences — but he would have been a Latin writer, 
and his hexameters worth waiting for. And England did 
not wait in vain for a nno effluence of genius — it came at 

' last like the morning — a pale light in the sky, an awaken- 
ing b rd, and a sunburst — we had Cowper — we had Burns 

' — that lark of the new grey dawn ; and presently the early- 
risers of the land could see to spell slowly out the name of 
William Wordsworth. They saw it and read it clearly with 

' those of Coleridge and Leigh Hunt, — and subsequently of 

■ Shelley and Keats, notwithstanding the dazzling beams of 
' lurid power which were in full radiation from the engross- 

■ ing name of Byron. 

I Mr. Wordsworth began his day with a dignity and dc- 

■ termination of purpose, which might well have startled the 
public and all its small poets and critics, his natural ene 

' mies. He laid down fixed principles in his prefaces, and 
'carried them out willi rigid boldness, in his poems; and 

■ when the world laughed, he bore it well, for his logic ap- 
" prized him of what should follow : nor was he without the 
■i synii)athy of Coleridge and a few other first-rate intellects. 
- With a severe hand he tore away from his art, the encum- 
'' boring .artifices of his predecessors ; and he walked upon 
1 the pride of criticism with greater pride. No toleration 
^ would he extend to the worst laws of a false critical code; 

nor any conciliation to the critics who had enforced them. 
J He was a poet., and capable of poetry, he thought, only cis 
I he was a man and faithful to his humanity. He would not 
;!' separate poetry and nature, even in their forms. Instead of 
!« being " classical" and a " wit," he would be a poet and a 
ftiman, and "like a man," (notwithstanding certain weak mo- 
jWments) he spoke out bravely, in language free of the cur- 
rent phraseology and denuded of conventional adornments, 



180 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

the thought which was in him. And the thought and the 
word witnessed to that verity of nature, which is eternal 
with variety. He laid his hand upon the Pegasean mane, 
and testified that it was not floss silk. He testified that the 
ground was not all lawn or bowling-green ; and that the for- 
est trees were not clipped upon a pattern. He scorned to 
be contented with a tradition of beauty, or with an abstrac- 
tion of the beautiful. He refused to work, as others had 
done, like those sculptors, who make all their noses in the 
fashion of that of the Medicsean Venus ; until no one has 
his own nose ; nature being " cut to order." William 
Wordsworth would accept no type for nature : he would 
take no leap at the generalization of the natural ; and the 
brown moss upon the pale should be as sacred to him and 
acceptable to his song, as the pine-clothed mountain. He 
is a poet of detail, and sings of what is closest to his eye ; 
as small starting points for far views, deep sentiment, and 
comprehensive speculation. " The meanest flower that 
blows " is not too mean for him ; exactly because " thoughts 
too deep for tears" lie for him in the mystery of its mean- 
ness: He has proved this honour on the universe ; that in 
its meanest natural thing is no vulgarism, unconveyed by 
the artificiality of human manners. That such a principle 
should lead to some puerilities at the outset, was not surprising. 
A minute observer of exterior nature, his humanity 
seems nevertheless to stand between it and him ; and he 
confounds those two lives — not that he loses himself in the 
contemplation of things, but that he absorbs them in him- 
self, and renders them Wordsworthian. They are not what 
he wishes, until he has brt uglit them home to his own heart. 
Chaucer and Burns made the most of a daisy, but left it still 
a datsy ; Mr. Wordsworth leaves it transformed into Ids 
thoughts. This is the sublime of egotism, disinterested as 
extreme. It is on the entity of the man Wordsworth, that 
the vapour creeps along the hill — and "the mountains are 
a feeling." To use the lanfjuarre of the German schools, he 
makes a subjectivity of his objectivity. Beyond the habits ; 
and purposes of his individuality, he cannot carry his sym- 1 
pathies ; and of all powerful writers, he is the least drama- : 
tic. Another reason, however, for his dramatic inaptitude, I 
is his deficiency in passion. He is passionate in his will j 
and reason, but not in his senses and affections ; and ger- 



AND LEIGH HUNT. 181 

haps scarcely in his fancy and imagination. He has writ- 
ten, however, one of the noblest odes in the English lan- 
giinge, in his " Recollections of Childhood ;" and his chief 
poem, "The Excursion," which is only a portion of a larger 
work (to be published hereafter) called " The Recluse," 
has passages of very glorious exaltation. Still, he is 
seldom impulsive ; and his exaltation is rather the nobly- 
acquired habit of his mind than the prerogative of his tem- 
perament. A great Christian moralist and teacher, he is 
sacerdotal both in gravity and purity ; he is majestic and 
self-possessed. Like many other great men he can be dull 
and prolix. If he has not written too many sonnets, it may 
be doubted if he has not burned too few : none are bad, it 
is true ; but the value of the finest would be enhanced by 
separation from so much fatiguing good sense. They would 
be far more read. Perhaps, his gravity and moral aim are 
Mr. Wordsworth's most prevailing characteristics. His 
very-cheerfulness is a smile over the altar, — a smile of bene- 
diction which no one dares return, — and expressive of good 
will rather than sympathy. 

These remarks have doubtless occurred to many stu- 
dents and admirers of Wordsworth ; but it is more remark- 
able that he is what he is, not unconsciously or instinc- 
tively, as many other men of genius have developed their 
idiosyncracies ; but consciously, to all appearance, and de- 
terminately, and by a particular act of the will. Moreover, 
he is not only a self-conscious thinker and feeler ; but he is 
conscious, apparently, of this self-consciousness. 

When Mr. Wordsworth had published his " Lyrical Bal- 
lads," out swarmed the critics, — with reference to the acci- 
dental gathering together in his neighbourhood of certain 
poets, (who, although men of genius and impatient of the 
trammels of the scholastic rhymers, were not so " officially " 
reformers, nor partakers of his characteristics ;) — out 
swarmed the critics, declaring that the Lyrical Balladmon- 
ger had a school, and that it should be called the " Lake 
School." It was a strange mistake, even for the craft. 
Here was a man reproached by themselves, with all anti- 
scholastic offences, a man who had made mock at the for- 
mulas, confused the classes, and turned the schoolmasters 
out of doors ! — and he must be placed in a school, forsooth, 
for the sake of those who could discern nothing out of the 



182 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

subdivisions of the schools. The critical " inemoria tech- 
nica " required that it should be so arranged. And, verily, 
when Wordsworth and his peers looked up to the sublime 
Lake mountains, and down to the serene Lake waters, they 
were probably consoled for the slang, by the dignity and 
holiness of this enforced association. It was otherwise in 
the matter of another calling of names, nearly simulta- 
neously effected ; when Leigh Hunt and his friends were 
saluted in London, by that nickname of the " Cockney 
School," which was so incessantly repeated and applied to 
almost every body who ventured to write a verse, that at 
length it became the manifest sign of a juvenile Cockney 
critic to use the term. It was presently superseded by the 
new nickname of " Satanic School," which, however, unlike 
the others, had some sort of foundation. 

The Cockney School was as little-minded a catch-word 
of distinctive abuse, as ever came from the splenetic pen of 
a writer " at a loss for something." The cheek of the im- 
partial historian, as of the true critic of the present times, 
flushes in having to recount, that Lamb, who stammered 
out in childlike simplicity, his wit beautiful with wisdom, — 
that Coleridge, so full of genius and all rare acquirements, — 
that Hazlitt, who dwelt gloriously with philosophy in a cham- 
ber of imagery, — that Shelley, with his wings of golden 
fire, — that Keats, who saw divine visions, and the pure 
Greek ideal, because he had the essence in his soul, — that 
Leigh Hunt (now the sole survivor of all these) true poet 
and exquisite essayist, — and finally Alfred Tennyson — were 
of the writers so stigmatized! Eventually the term was 
used as a reproach by people who had never been out of 
London, and by Scotchmen who had never been out of Ed- 
inburgh — and then — that is, when this fact was discovered 
pretty generally — then the epithet was no more heard. 
But while in use, its meaning seemed to be — pastoral, minus 
nature; and it is a curious and striking fact, that everyone 
of the eminent men to whom it was applied was a marked 
example of the very contrary characteristic. It hence would 
appear that the term was chiefly applicable to the men them- 
selves who used it ; because, knowing nothing of pastoral 
nature, they did not recognize it when placed before them, 
but conceived it must be a mere aflectation of something 
beyond their own civic ideas. If the word had meant sim- 



AND LEIGH HUNT. 183 

ply an exclusion, as livers in cities, from a familiarity with 
the country — if it had meant the acquirement of conven- 
tional views and artificial habits from this accident of place; 
then it suited Dr. Johnson, Pope, and his " wits about town, " 
with tolerable propriety. 

Leigh Hunt, the poet of " Foliage " and the " Story of 
Rimini," the author of some of the most exquisite essays in 
the English language, of a romance, (" Sir Ralph Esher,") 
full of power and beauty, and of the " Legend of Florence," 
a production remarkable for dramatic excellence and a pure 
spirit of generous and refined morality, is likely to be hon- 
oured with more love from posterity, than he had ever re- 
ceived, or can hope to receive, from his contemporary pub- 
lic. Various circumstances combined to the ruffling of the 
world beneath his feet — and the two years of his imprison- 
ment, for libel, when he covered his prison-walls with gar- 
lands of roses, and lived, in spite of fate and the king's at- 
torney-general, in a bower — present a type, in the smiling 
quaintness of their oppositions, of the bitterness and sweet- 
ness, the constraint and gay-heartedness of his whole life 
besides. At the very time he was thus imprisoned, his phy- 
sician had ordered him much horse-exercise, his health 
having been greatly impaired by sedentary habits. Still, 
he covered the walls of his room with garlands. 

On a survey of the ordinary experiences of poets, we are 
apt to come hastily to a conclusion, that a true poet may 
have quite enough tribulation by his poetry, for all good 
purposes of adversity, without finding it necessary to break 
any fresh ground of vexation : — but Leigh Hunt, imprudent 
in his generation, was a gallant politician, as well as a gen- 
uine poet; and by his connection with the "Examiner" 
newspaper, did, in all the superfluity of a youth full of ani- 
mal spirits, sow the whirlwind and reap the tornado. We 
have also heard of some other literary offences of thirty or 
forty years ago, but nobody cares to recollect them. In re- 
ligious feeling, however, he has been misrepresented. It is 
certain that no man was ever more capable of the spirit of 
reverence; for God gifted him with a loving genius — with 
a genius to love and bless. He looks full tenderly into the 
face of every man, and woman, and child, and living crea- 
ture; and the beautiful exterior world, even when it is in 
angry mood, he smooths down softly, as in recognition of 



184 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

its sentiency, with a gentle caressing of the fancy — Chau- 
cer's irrepressible " Ah, benedicite," falling for ever from 
his lips ! There is another point of resemblance between 
him and several of the elder poets, who have a social joyous 
fuU-heartedness ; a pathetic sweetness ; a love of old stories, 
and of sauntering about green places ; and a liking for gar- 
dens and drest nature, as well as fields and forests ; though 
he is not always so simple as they, in his mode of describing, 
but is apt to elaborate his admiration, while his elder broth- 
ers described the thing — and left it so. He presses into 
association with the old Elizabethan singing choir, just as 
the purple light from Italy and Marini had flushed their 
foreheads r and he is an Italian scholar himself, besides hav- 
ing read the Greek idyls. He has drunken deep from " the 
beaker full of the warm South," and loves to sit in the 
sun, indolently turning and shaping a fancy "light as air," 
or — and here he has never had justicfe done him — in brood- 
ing deeply over the welfare, the struggles, and hopes of hu- 
manity. Traces of this high companionship and these pleas- 
ant dispositions are to be found like lavender between the 
leaves of his books ; while a fragrance native to the ground 
— which would be enough for the reader's pleasure, though 
the lavender were shaken out — diffiises itself fresh and pecu- 
liar over all. He is an original writer : his individuality 
extending into mannerism, which is individuality prominent 
in the mode. When he says new things, he puts them 
strikingly ; when he says old things, he puts them newly — 
and no intellectual and good-tempered reader will com- 
plain of this freshness, on account of a certain " knack 
at trifling," in which he sometimes chooses to indulge. He 
does, in fact, constrain such a reader into sympathy with 
him — constrain him to be glad " with the spirit of joy " of 
which he, the poet, is possessed — and no living poet has that 
obvious and overflowing delight in the bare act of composi- 
tion, of which this poet gives sign. ' Composition ' is not a 
word for him — we might as well use it of a bird — such is 
the ease with which it seems to flow ! Yet he is an artist 
and constructer also, and is known to work very hard at 
times before it comes out so bright, and graceful, and pre- 
tending to have cost no pains at all. He spins golden lines 
round and round and round, as a silk-worm in its cocoon. He 
is not without consciousness of art — only he is conscious less 



AND LEIGH HUNT. 185 

of design in it, than of pleasure and beauty. His excessive 
consciousness of grace in the turning of a line, and of 
richness in the perfecting of an image, is what some people 
have called "coxcombry ;" and the manner of it approaches 
to that conscious, sidelong, swimming gait, balancing be- 
tween the beautiful and the witty, which is remarkable in 
some elder poets. His versification is sweet and various, 
running into Chaucer's cadences. His blank verse is the 
most successfully original in its freedom, of any that has 
appeared since the time of Beaumont and Fletcher. His 
images are commonly beautiful, if often fantastic — cluster- 
ing like bees, or like grapes — sometimes too many for the 
vines — a good fault in tliese bare modern days. His gath- 
erings from nature are true to nature; and we might quote 
passages which wonld disprove the old by-gone charge of 
' Cockneyism,' by showing that he had brought to bear an 
exceeding niceness of actual observation upon the exterior 
world. His nature, however, is seldom moor-land and 
mountain-land ; nor is it, for the most part, English nature 
— we have hints of fauns and the nymphs lying hidden in 
the shadow of the old Italian woods ; and the sky overhead 
is several tints too blue for home experiences. It is nature, 
not by tradition, like Pope's nature, nor quite by sensation 
and reflection, like Wordsworth's: it is nature by memory 
and phantasy ; true, but touched with an exotic purple. 
His sympathies with men are wide as the distance between 
joy and grief; and while his laughter is audible and resist- 
less, in pathos and depth of tender passionateness, he is no 
less sufficient. The tragic power of the " Story of Rimini," 
has scarcely been exceeded by any English poet, alive or 
dead ; and his " Legend of Florence," is full of the ' purifi- 
cation of pity,' and the power of the most Christian-like 
manhood and sympathy. We might have fancied that the 
consciousness of pleasure in composition, which has been 
attributed to this poet, and the sense of individuality which 
it implies, would have interfered with the right exercise of 
the dramatic faculty — but the reason of tears is probtil^ly 
stronger in him than the consciousness of beauty. He has 
in him, and has displayed it occasionally, an exaltation and 
a sense of the divine, under a general aspect: a very noble 
dramatic lyric on the liberation of the soul from the body, 

9* 



1S6 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

published within the last seven years, has both those quali- 
ties, in the highest degree. 

In attempting some elucidatory contrast between the 
poets William Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt, as one of the 
applications of the foregoing remarks, it is not meant that 
their positions as poets and teachers (and all poets must be 
teachers) are alike in any external respects. We are not to 
forget that Mr. Wordsworth took the initiative in the great 
poetical movement of his times. Both, however, are poets 
and teachers, and both have been martyrs by distinction of 
persecution, and both were placed in " a school," by the 
critics, in a manner unsolicited and unjustified. Both are 
poets, but Wordsworth is so upon a scheme, and delermi- 
nately ; Hunt, because he could not help it, and instinct- 
ively — the first, out of the entireness of his will; the last, 
out of the fulness of his fancy. Both were reformers, but 
Hunt, like Melancthon, despising thelatter, and cleaving to 
the earlier Christians, — embraced the practice of Chaucer 
and of the Elizabethan men, as eagerly as adoctrine; while 
Wordsworth threw himself straight over all the fathers and 
ancestral poets, into the ' phiiosophia prima ' of first princi- 
ples. Not that Hunt rejected the first principles, nor 
Wordsworth the ancestral poets; but that the instinct of 
the former worked in him, while the ratiocination of the 
latter worked out of him. Both have an extraordinary con- 
sciousness — but Wordsworth has it in the determinatit)n of 
ends, and Hunt in the elaboration of details; — and in the 
first we discover the duty of the artist, and in the latter his 
pleasure. In exterior nature, Wordsworth has a wider faith, 
or a less discriminating taste. He draws her up into the 
embrace of his soul as he sees her, undivided and unadorned 
— a stick in the hedge he would take up into his song — but 
Hunt believes in nothing except beauty, and would throw 
away the stick, or cover it with a vine or woodbine. Mr. 
Hunt is more impressionable towards men — Wordsworth 
holds their humanity within his own, and teaches them out 
of it, and blesses them from the heights of his priestly office, 
— while it is enough for the other poet to weep and smiK? 
with them openly, what time he ' blesseth them unaware.' 
Hunt is more passionate, more tragic; and he has also a 
more rapid fancy, and a warmer imagination under certain 



AND LKIGH HUNT. 187 

aspects; but Wordsworth exceeds him in the imagination 
' in intcllcctiL' The imagination of the latter calls no 
" spirit," nor men from the vasty deep, but is almost en- 
tirely confined to the illustration of his own thoughts. The 
imagination of the former is habitually playful, and not dis- 
posed for sustained high exercise. William Wordsworth is 
a spiritual singer, a high religious singer, and none the less 
holy because he stands firmly still to reason among the toss- 
ings of the censers ; while Leigh Hunt is disposed to taste 
the odours of each while the worship is going on. Words- 
worth is habitually cold, distant, grave, inflexible ; Hunt 
exactly the opposite in each respect. The sympathies of 
Leigh Hunt are universal, in philosophy and in private hab- 
its ; the poetical sympathies of William Wordsworth are with 
primitive nature and humblelife, but his personal sympathies 
are aristocratical. Leigh Hunt converses as well as he 
writes, often better, ready on every point, with deep sincer- 
ity on all serious subjects, and far in advance of his age ; 
with a full and pleasant memory, of books, and men, and 
things; and with a rich sense of humour and a quick wit. 
Mr. Wordsworth does not converse. He announces formally 
at times, but he cannot find a current. He is moral, grave, 
good natured, and of kindly intercourse. He does not un- 
derstand a joke, but requires it to be explained ; after which 
he looks uneasy. It is not his point. He sees nothing in 
it. The thing is not, and cannot be made Wordsworthian. 
He reads poetry very grandly, and with solemnity. Leigh 
Hunt also reads admirably, and with the most expressive va- 
riety of inflection, and natural emphasis. He is fond of 
music, and sings and accompanies himself with great expres- 
sion. Mr. Wordsworth does not care much about music. 
He prefers to walk on the mountains in a high wind, bare- 
headed and alone, and listen to the far-off" roar of streams, 
and watch the scudding clouds while he repeats his verse 
aloud. 

Certain opinions concerning eminent men which have 
grown into the very fibres of the public mind, are always ex- 
pected to be repeated whenever the individual is spoken of 
Tothis there may be no great objection, provided awriter con- 
scientiously feels the truth of those opinions. With reference, 
therefore, to Wordsworth, as the poet of profound sentiment, 
elevated humanity, and religious emotion, responding to the 



188 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

universe around, we respectfully accept and record the pop- 
ular impression, asking permission, however, to offer a few 
remarks of our own for i'urther consideration. 

After the public had denied Mr. Wordsworth the posses- 
sion of any of the highest faculties of the mind during twenty 
years, the same public has seen good of late to reward him 
with all the highest faculties in excess. The imagination 
of Wordsworth is sublime in elevation, and as the illustrator 
of reflection; but it is very limited. It is very deficient in 
invention, see his " Poems of the Imagination." They per- 
fectly settle the question. The fine things which are there 
(in rather indifferent company) we know, and devoutly hon- 
our ; but we also know what is not there. He has a small 
creative spirit; narrow, without power, and ranging over a 
barren field. These remarks cannot honestly be quoted 
apart from the rest of what is said of Mr. Wordsworth : such 
remarks, however, must be made, or the genius in question 
is not justly measured. He has no sustained plastic ener- 
gies ; no grand constructive power in general design of a 
continuous whola, either of subject, or of individual charac- 
ters. His universality is in humanity, not in creative ener- 
gies. He has no creative passion. His greatness is lofty 
and reflective, and his imagination turns like a zodiac upon 
its own centre, lit by its own internal sun. If at times it 
resembles the bare, dry, attenuated littleness of a school- 
boy's hoop, he may insist upon admiring this as much as his 
best things, but posterity will not be convinced. It is in 
vain to be obstinate against time ; for some day the whole 
truth is sure to be said, and some day it is sure to be be- 
lieved. 

The prose writings of these distinguished poets are 
strikingly qualified to bring under one view these various 
points of contrast : and yet it must be granted, at the first 
glance, that Wordsworth's prose is only an exposition of the 
principles of liis poetry, or highly valuable as an appendix 
to his poems ; while, if Leigh Hunt had never written a line 
as a poet, his essays would have proved him an exquisite 
writer, and established his claim upon posterity. As it is, 
he has two claims ; and is not likely to he sent back for 
either of them, not even as the rival of Addison. The motto 
to his " London Journal " is highly characteristic of him — 
"To assist the inquiring, animate ihe struggling, and sym- 



AND LEIGH HUNT. 189 

patliize with «?/." The very philosophy of cheerfulness and 
the good humour of genius imbue all his prose papers from 
end to end ; and if the best dreamer of us all should dream 
of a poet at leisure, and a scholar " in idleness," neither 
scholar nor poet wouM speak, in that air of dreamland, more 
graceful, wise, and scholarlike fancies than are written in 
his books. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, remits noth- 
ing of his poetic austerity when he condescends to speak 
prose ; if any thing, he is graver than ever, with an additional 
tone of the dictator. He teaches as from the chair, and 
with the gesture of a master, as he is, — learnedly, wisely, 
sometimes eloquently, and not unseldom coldly and heavily, 
and with dull redundancy ; but always with a self-possessed 
and tranquil faith in the truth which is in him, and (con- 
sidering it is poet's prose) with a curious deficiency of 
imagery and metaphor, not as if in disdain of the adornment 
and illustration, but rather as being unable to ascend from 
the solid level without the metrical pinions. 

The work that Leigh Hunt has done, may be expressed 
in the few words of a dedication made to him some yea ^ s 
since.* " You have long assisted," says the dedication, — • 
" largely and most successfully — to educate the hearts and 
heads of both old and young; and the extent of the service 
is searceli/ perceptible, because the free and familiar spirit in 
which it has been rendered gives it the semblance of an invol- 
untary emcination. The spontaneous diffusion of intelligence 
and good feeling is not calculated, however, to force its at- 
tention upon general perception," &c. The meaning of all 
this is that Leigh Hunt has no " system," and no sustained 
gravity of countenance, and therefore the fineness of his in- 
tellect, and the great value of his unprofessor-like teaching 
has been e.itreniely underrated. The dedication also marks 
this disgrace to the age — which shall be as distinctly stated 
as such a disgrace deserves — that while the public generally 
takes it for granted that Mr. Leigh Hunt is on the Pension 
List, he most certainly is not, and never has been ! 

Both of these authors have written too much : Words- 
worth from choice ; Leigh Hunt less from choice than ne- 
cessity. The first thinks that all he has written must be 
nearly of equal value, because he takes equal pains with 

* Bee " Denth of Mnrlowe." 



190 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

every thing ; the second evidently knows the inferiority of 
many of his productions — " but what is a poet to do who fol- 
lows literature as a profession ?" Few can afford to please 
themselves. In tliis respect, however, Mr. Wordsworth is 
always successful. 

After twenty years c*" public abuse and laughter, Wil- 
liam Wordsworth is now regarded by the public of the same 
country, as the prophet of his age. And this is not a right 
view — after all. Wordsworth's feeling for pastoral nature, 
and the depths of sentiment which he can deduce from such 
scenes, and the losson of humanity he can read to the heart 
of man, are things, in themselves, for all time; but as the 
prophetic spirit is essentially that of a passionate foreseeing 
and annunciation of some extraneous good tidings to man : 
in this sense Wordsworth is not a prophet. His sympathies, 
and homilies, and invocations, are devoted to the pantheistic 
forms of nature, and what they suggest to his own soul of 
glory and perpetuity ; but he does not cry aloud to mankind 
like a " voice in the wilderness," that the way should be 
" made straight," that a golden age will come, or a better age, 
or that the time may come when " poor humanity's afflicted 
will" shall not struggle altogether in vain with ruthless des- 
tiny. His Sonnets in favour of the punishment of Death, 
chiefly on the ground of not venturing to meddle with an old 
law, are the tomb of his prophet-title. He is a prophet of 
the Past. His futurity is in the eternal form of things, and 
the aspiration of his own soul towards the spirit of the uni- 
verse ; but as for the destinies of mankind, he looks back 
upon them with a sigh, and thinks that as they were in the 
beginning, so they shall be world without end. His " future 
can but be the ])ast." He dictates, he does not predict; he 
is a teacher and a preacher in the highest sense, but he does 
not image forth the To-Come, nor sound the trun){)et of 
mighty changes in tiie horizon. 

It is wonderful to see how great things are sometimes 
dependent upon small, not for their existence, but for 
their temporary effect. Any thing essentially great in its 
mentality, will be lasting when once tlie world appreciates 
it ; the period of this commencement, however, may be re- 
tarded beyond the life of the origiiuitor, and perhaps far 
longer, merely by its being accompanied with some perfectly 
extraneous form or fancy which has caught the public ear. 



AND LEIGH HUNT. 191 

an(i caused the airy part to be mistaken for the substantial 
whole, the excrescence for the centre. Mr. Leigh Hunt 
was generally very felicitous in certain words and phrases, 
and admirable for reconciling the jarring discord of evil say- 
ings and doings ; but he had half-a-dozen words and phrases 
which people " agreed to hate," and he would never cease 
to use; and they were also provoked at his tendency to con- 
fuse the distinctions of sympathy and antipathy, by saying 
too much on the amiable side of the condemned, so that, 
after all, mankind seemed to be wrong in definitely deciding 
for the right. Metaphysically, he may be correct; but 
" practice drives us mad." The Fish who became wiser 
when changed into a Man, and again wiser when changed 
into a Spirit, (see Hunt's inimitable poem on the subject,) 
migiit have had still more knowledge to communicate if he 
had been put back once more to a Fish. Something very 
like the principle here discussed, is discoverable in Cliancer 
and Shakspeare, who usually give the bane and antidote in 
close relation, do justice to every one on all sides, and 
never insist upon a good thing nor a bad one, but display an 
impartiality which often amounts to the humorous. Leigh 
Hunt's manner of doing this was the chief offence, for while 
the elder poets left the readers to their own conclusions, our 
author chose to take the case upon himself, so that he be- 
came identified with the provocation of those readers who 
were defeated of an expected decision. In Mr. Words- 
worth's case there was a more deliberate and settled design 
in his offence. Subjects and characters seemed to be 
chosen, and entire poems written expressly with a view to 
provoke ridicule and contempt. He wrote many poems 
which were trivial, puerile, or mere trash. Not a doubt of 
it. There stand the very poems still in his works ! Any 
body can see them — the ungrateful monuments of a great 
poet. Weakness, reared by his own hands, and kept in 
repair to his latest day ! Let no false pen garble these 
remarks, and say that the essayist calls the high-minded 
and true poet Wordsworth bad names, and depreciates his 
genius; let the remarks of the whole be fiirly taken. With 
this peremptory claim for justice and fair dealing on all 
sides, be it stated as an opinion, that poems, in which, by 
carrying a great principle to a ridiculous extreme, are 
gravely "exalted" garden-spades, common streets, sm.dl 



192 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, AND LEIGH HUNT. 

celandines, waggoners, beggars, household common-places, 
and matter-of-fact details, finished up like Dutch pictures 
and forced upon the attention as pre-eminently claiming 
profound admiration or reverence — that these deliberate 
outrages upon true taste, judgment, and the ideality of 
poetry, cost a great poet twenty years of abuse and laughter 
— during which period thousands of people died without 
knowing his genius, who might otherwise, have been re- 
fined and elevated, and more " fit " to die into a higher 
existence. 

Now, however, all these small offences are merged in a 
public estimation, which seems likely to endure with our 
literature. Wordsworth is taken into the reverence of the 
intellect, and Leigh Hunt into the warm recesses of the 
affections. The one elevates with the sense of moral dig- 
nity ; the other refines with a loving spirit, and instructs in 
smiles. And this is their influence upon the present age. 





I^A-T, 



/' 






XilK.of l\fic>i*:m8r C,,ii-|m-!.niW.its.nL St. TIT 



ALFRED TENNYSON 



" A haunting music, sole perlinps and lone 
Pupportress of the faery roof, made moan 
Tliroughout, as fearing the whole charm might fade. 

Keats. 
" ^Vor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 
But feeds on the aerial kisses 
Of shapes that haunt thoughts' wildernesses. 
He will watch from dawn to gloom 
The lake-reflected sun illume 
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom. 
Nor heed nor see what things they be ; 
But from these, create he can 
Forms more real than real man, — 
Nurslings ofimmortality." 

Shelley. 

The poetic fire is one simple and intense element in hu- 
man nature ; it has its source in the divine mysteries of our 
existence ; it developes with the first abstract delight of 
childhood, the first youthftil aspiration towards something 
beyond our mortal reach ; and eventually becomes the 
master passion of those who are possessed with it in the 
highest degree, and the most ennobling and refining influ- 
ence that can be exercised upon the passions of others. At 
times, and in various degrees, all are open to the influence 
of the poetic element. Its objects are palpable to the exter- 
nal senses, in proportion as individual perception and sen- 
sibility have been habituated to contemplate them with 
interest and delight ; and palpable to the imagination in 
proportion as an individual possesses this faculty, and 
has habituated it to ideal subjects and profoundly sympa- 
thetic reflections. If there be a third condition of its pres- 
ence, it must be that of a certain consciousness of dreamy 
glories in the soul, with vague emotions, aimless impulses, 
and prophetic sensations, which may be said to tremble on 
the extreme verge of the fermenting source of that poetic 
fire, by which the life of humanity is purified and adorned. 



194 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

The first and second of these conditions must be clear to 
all ; the last will not receive so general an admission, and 
perhaps may not be so intelligible to every body as could be 
wished. We thus arrive at the conclusion that the poetic 
element, though simple and entire, has yet various forms 
and modifications of development according to individual 
nature and circumstance, and, therefore, that its loftiest or 
subtlest manifestations are not equally apparent to the aver- 
;io-e mass of human intelligence. He, then, who can give a 
form and expression to these lofty or these subtle manifesta- 
tions, in a way that shall be the most intelligible to the ma- 
jority, is he who best accomplishes the mission of a Poet. 
We are about to claim for Alfred Tennyson — living as he 
is, and solely on account of what he has already accom- 
plished — the title of a true poet of the highest class of 
genius, and one whose writings may be considered as pecu- 
liarly lucid to all competent understandings that have culti- 
vated a love for poetry. 

It may fairly be assumed that the position of Alfred Ten- 
nyson, as a poet of fine genius, is now thoroughly estab- 
lished in the minds of all sincere and qualified lovers of the 
hiorher classes of poetry in this country. But what is his 
position in the public mind ? Or, rather, to what extent is 
he known to the great mass of general readers 1 Choice 
and limited is the audience, we apprehend, to whom this 
favoured son of Apollo pours forth his melodious song. It 
is true, however, that the public is " a rising man " in its 
gradual appreciation, perhaps of every genius of the present 
time ; and certainly this appreciation is really on the rise 
with respect to the poetry of Tennyson. It is only some 
thirteen years since he published his first volume, and if it 
require all this time for " the best judges" to discover his 
existence, and determine " in one way, and the other," 
upon some of his most original features, the public may be 
excused for not knowing more about his poems than they 
do at present. That they desire to know more is apparent 
from many circumstances, and partly from the fact of the 
last edition of his works, in two volumes, having been dis- 
posed of in a few months. Probably the edition was not 
lirge ; such, however, is the result after thirteen years. 

The name of Alfred Tennyson is pressing slowly, calmly, 
but surely, — with certain recognition but no loud shouts of 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 195 

greeting, — from the lips of the discerners of poets, of whom 
there remain a few, even in the cast-iron ages, along the 
lips of the less informed public, " to its own place" in the 
stony house of names. That it is the name of a true poet, 
the drowsy public exerts itself to acknowledge ; testifying 
with a heavy lifting of the eyelid, to its consciousness of a 
new light in one of the nearer sconces. This poet's public 
is certainly awake to him, although you would not think so. 
And this public's poet, standing upon the recognition of his 
own genius, begins to feel the ground firm beneath his feet, 
after no worse persecution than is comprised in those 
charges of affectation, quaintness, and mannerism, which 
were bleated down the ranks of the innocent " sillie " critics 
as they went one after another to water. Let the toleration 
be chronicled to the honour of England.* And who knows 1 
— There maybe hope from this, and a few similar instances 
of misprision of the high treason of poetry, that our country 
may conclude her grand experience of a succession of 
poetical writers unequalled in the modern world, by learning 
some ages hence to know a poet when she sees one. Cer- 
tainly, if we looked only to the peculiar genius of Tennyson, 
with the eyes of our forefathers, and some others rather 
nearer to our own day, we should find it absolutely worthy 
of being either starved or stoned, or as Shelley said of Keats, 
" hooted into the grave." 

A very striking remark was made in the Times, (Decem- 
ber 2Cth, 1842,) with reference to the fate and progress of 
true poets in the mind of the public. Alluding to " the 
noble fragment of ' Hyperion,' " the writer says, " Strange 
as it may appear, it is no less certain that the half-finished 
works of this young, miseducated, and unripe genius, have 
had the greatest influence on that which is now the popular 
poetry. In the eyes of the ' young England' of poets, as in 
those of Shelley — 

' The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the immortals arc.' 

" What a text," pursues the same writer, " for a dis- 
sertation on the mutability of popular taste !" True, indeed ; 
but we must not be tempted into it, at present. Objecting 

* One exception, at least, should be noticed. In 1833 u philosophical criticism 
appeari'd on Tennyson, in the " Monthly Repository," written by W. J. Fox, which 
unhesitatingly recognized his genius. 



96 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

to the expressions of" miseducated " and " unripe," as only 
applicable to the errors in " Endymion," and his earlier 
poems; and to "half-finished," as only applicable (we be- 
lieve this is correct?) to " Hyperion," there can be no sort 
of doubt of the influence. But there is this peculiarity at- 
tached to it, one which stands alone in the history, certainly 
of all modern influences. It is, that he has not had a single 
mechanical imitator. There is an excellent reason for this. 
A mechanical imitation of siyle, or by choice of similar 
subjects, would not bear any resemblance to Keats ; no 
one would recognize the intended imitation. When some- 
body expressed his surprise to Shelley, that Keats, who was 
not very conversant with the Greek language, could write 
so finely and classically of their gods and goddesses, Shelley 
replied, " He was a Greek." We may also refer to what 
Landor has said of him, in the paper headed with that gen- 
tleman's name in this present work. The writings of 
Keats are saturated and instinct with the purest inspir- 
ation of poetry ; his mythology is full of ideal passion ; 
his divinities are drawn as from "the life," nay, from their 
inner and essential life ; his enchantments and his " faery 
land " are exactly like the most lovely and truthful records 
of one who has been a dweller among them, and a participa- 
tor in their mysteries ; and his descriptions of pastoral scene- 
ry, are often as natural and simple as they are romantic, 
and tinged all over with ideal beauty. Admitting all the 
faults, errors in taste, and want of design in his earliest 
works, but laying our hands with full faith upon his "La- 
mia," " Isabella," " The Eve of St. Agnes," the four 
" Odes " in the same collection, and the fragment of " Hy- 
perion," we unhesitatingly say that there is no poet, ancient 
or modern, upon whom the title of " Divine " can be more 
appropriately conferred than upon Keats. While the " Sa- 
tanic School " was in its glory, it is no great wonder that 
Wordsworth should have been a constant laughing-stock, 
and Keats an object for contemptuous dismissal to the tomb. 
It must, however, be added, that the marked neglect of the 
public towards the latter has continued down to the present 
day. The pure Greek wine of Keats has been set aside for 
the thin gruel of Kirk White. But if there be faith in the 
pure Ideal, and in the progress of intelligence and refine- 
ment, the ultimate recognition of Keats by the public will 



ALFRED TENNYSON, 197 

certainly follow that of the "fit audience" which he will 
ever continue to possess. Of all the numerous imitators of 
Lord Byron, not one now remains. And this may be men- 
tioned as a quiet commentary upon his supercilious fling at 
the superior genius of John Keats. 

How it should happen that the influencer of so many 
spirits of the present time should himself have been left to 
the ecstatic solitude of his own charmed shores and " faery 
lands forlorn," while those very spirits have each and all of 
them made some passage for themselves into the public 
mind, is one of those problems which neither the common 
ftite of originators, the obduracy or caprice of the public, 
the clinging poison of bygone malice and depreciation, nor 
the want of sufficient introduction and championship on the 
part of living appreciators, can furnish a perfectly satisfacto- 
ry solution. Such, however, is the fact at this very time. 

We have said that Keats has had no imitators ; of what 
nature, then, has been his influence upon the poetry of the 
present day ? It has been spiritual in its ideality ; it has 
been classical in its revivification of the forms and images 
of the antique, which he inspired with a new soul ; it has 
been romantic in its spells, and dreams, and legendary as- 
sociations; and it has been pastoral in its fresh gatherings 
from the wild forests and fields, and as little as possible from 
the garden, and never from the hot-house and the flower- 
shows. His imagination identified itself with the essences 
of things, poetical in themselves, and he acted as the inter- 
preter of all this, by words which eminently possess the pre- 
rogative of expressive form and colour, and have a sense of 
their own by which to make themselves understood. Who 
' shall imitate these peculiarities of genius? It is not possi- 
' ble. Bet kindred spirits will always recognize the voice 
' from other spheres, will hail the " vision, and the faculty 
'i divine," come from whom it may, will have their own inhe- 
I rent impulses quickened to look into their own hearts, and 
i abroad upon nature and mankind, and to work out the pur- 
'l poses of their souls. 

' How much of the peculiar genius of Keats is visible in 
'. Alfred Tennyson, must have been apparent to all those who 
'■'■ are familiar with their writings ; and yet it is equally cer- 
1 tain that Tennyson, so far from being an imitator of any one, 
' is undoubtedly one of the most original poets that ever 



li)S ALFRED TENNYSON. 

lived. Wordsworth has had many imitators, some of whom 
have been tolerably successful, — especially in the simplicity. 
They thought that was the grand secret. A few who had 
genuine ideas have been more worthy followers of the great 
poet of profound sentiment. Tennyson has also had follow- 
ers ; but only such as liave felt his spirit, nor is he likely to 
have any mere imitators, for the dainty trivialities and man- 
nerism of his early productions have been abandoned, and 
now let those imitate who can. They must have some fine 
poetical elements of their own in order to be at all success- 
ful. 

If a matter-of-fact philosopher who prided himself upon 
the hardness of his head, and an exclusive faculty of under- 
standing actual things, were to apply to us for the significa- 
tion of the word " Poetry," we could not do better than 
thrust into his hand, widely opened for the expected brick, 
one of Alfred Tennyson's volumes. His poetry is poetry in 
the intense sense, and admits of no equivocal definitions. 
The hard-headed realist might perhaps accept Macaulay's 
" Lays of Ancient Rome," as good martial music, (with the 
help of L little prompting from a friend of some imagination,) 
or Mr. Henry Taylor's " Philip van Artevelde " as excel- 
lent steady thinking ; or a considerable portion even of 
Wordsworth's works as sound good sense, though in vorse, 
(a great admission;) but if he did not understand Tenny- 
son's poems to be " Poetry," he would not be very likely to 
misunderstandthem for any thing else. The essence and el- 
ement of them are poetry. The poetry of the matter strikes 
through the manner. The Art stands up in his poems, self- 
proclaimed, and not as any mere modification of thought and 
language, but the operation of a separate and definite power 
in the human faculties. A similar observation attaches 
itself to the poetry of Shelley, to the later productions of 
Keats, to certain poems of Coleridge. But Tennyson and 
Shelley, more particularly, walk in the common daylight in 
their " singing clothes :" they are silver-voiced when they 
ask for salt, and say " Good-morrow to you " in a cadence. 
They each have a poetical dialect : not such a one as Words- 
worth deprecated when he overthrew a system : not a con- 
ventional poetical idiom, but the very reverse of it — each 
poet fashioning his phrases upon his own individuality; and 
speaking as if he were making a language then, for the first 



ALFRED TENNYSON 199 

time, under those 'purple eyes' of the muse, which tinted 
every syllable as it was uttered, with a separate benediction. 
Perhaps the first spell cast by Mr. Tennyson, the mas- 
ter of many spells, he cast upon the ear. His power as a 
lyrical versifier is remarkable. The measures flow softly or 
roll nobly to his pen ; as well one as the other. He can 
gather up his strength, like a serpent, in the gleaming coil 
of a line ; or dart it out straight and free. Nay, he will 
write you a poem with nothing in it except music, and as it' 
its music were every thing, it shall charm your soul. Be 
this said not in reproach, — but in honour of him and of the 
English language, for the learned sweetness of his numbers. 
The Italian lyrists may take counsel, or at once enjoy, — 

' Where Claribe! low lietli.' 

But if sweetness of melody and richness of harmony be the 

most exquisitely sensuous of Tennyson's characteristics, he 

is no less able to " pipe to the spirit ditiies of no tone," for 

certainly his works are equally characterized by their 

thoughtful grace, depth of sentiment, and ideal beauty. 

And he not only has the most musical words at his command, 

(without having recourse to exotic terminologies,) but he 

possesses the power of conveying a sense of colour, and a 

precision of outline by means of words, to an extraordinary 

i degree. In music and colour he was equalled by Shelley ; 

I but in fo'/rt, clearly defined, with no apparent effort, and no 

; harsh shades or lines, Tennyson stands unrivalled. 

i His ideality is both adornative and creative, although 

I up to this period it is ostensibly rather the former than the 

) latter. His ideal faculty is either satisfied with an exquis- 

I itely delicate Arabesque painting, or clears the ground be- 

; fore him so as to melt and disperse all other objects into a 

^suitable atmosphere, or aerial perspective, while he takes 

,1 horse on a passionate impulse, as in some of his ballads 

ywhich seem to have been panted through without a single 

-pause. This is the case in " Oriana," in " Locksley Hall," 

in " The Sisters," &c. Or, at other times, selecting some 

,iancicnt theme, he stands collected and self-contained, and 

rolls out with an impressive sense of dignity, orb after orb 

■tof that grand melancholy music of blank verse which leaves 

,iilong vibrations in the reader's memory ; as in " Ulysses," 

Ahe divine " Ol^none," or the " Morte D' Arthur," The 



200 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

idea of the death, or fading away of Fairy-land, allegorically 
conveyed in the latter poem, is apparently the main basis ot 
the design, and probably original ; but it is observable that 
Tennyson scarcely ever invents any elaborate design of 
movincT characters. The two other poems just named, with 
the "Lord of Burleigh," "Lady Clare," "Dora," " Godi- 
va," and most of those which contain human character in a 
progressive story, are taken from various sources ; but they 
are taken by a master-hand, and infused with new life and 
beauty, new thought and emotion. The same peculiarity 
as to ground-plot Is observable in Shakspeare and Chaucer, 
who never invented their subjects or stories; but filled them 
up as nobody else ever had done, or could do. It was ex- 
actly the converse with Scott, who invented nearly all his 
stories, but borrowed materials to fill them up from all pos- 
sible sources. Tennyson does not appear to possess much 
inventive construction. He has burnt his epic, or this 
would have settled the question. We would almost venture 
to predict that he will never write another ; nor a five-act 
tragedy, nor a long heroic poem. Why should he? 

^Alfred Tennyson may be considered generally under 
four different aspects,— developed separately or in collectivei 
harmony, according to the nature of his subject — that is to 
say, as a poet of fairy-land and enchantment ; as a poet ofi 
profound sentiment in the affections, (as Wordsworth is of] 
the intellect and moral feelings ;) as a painter of pastoral na-^ 
ture; and as the delineator and representer of tragic emo-^ 
tions, chiefly with reference to one particular passion. 

With regard to the first of these aspects of his genius, it 
may be adniTtted at the outset that Tennyson is not the por-j 
trayer of individual, nor of active practical character. His 
characters, with few e.Kceptions, are generalizations, or refin- 
ed abstractions, clearly developing certain thoughts, feelings, 
and forms, and bringing them home to all competent syni-: 
pathies. This is almost exclusively the case in the first vol- 
ume, published in 1830. Those critics, therefore, who have 
seized upon the poet's early loves — his Claribels, Lilians, 
Adelines, Madelines — and comparing them with real women, 
and the lady-loves of the actual world, have declared tli;it 
they were not natural beings of flesh and blood, have trii <! 
them by a false standard. They do not belong to the flesh) 
and-blood class. There is no such substance in them 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 201 

They are creatures of the elements of poetry. And, for that 
reason, they have a sensuous life of their own ; as far remov- 
ed from ordinary bodily condition as from pure spirit. They 
are transcendentalisms of the senses; examples of the Ho- 
meric siSaX(t, or rather — if we may venture to trace the genea- 
logical history of such fragile creatures — the descendants of 
those sidcolu, as modified by the influence of the romantic 
ages. Standing or seated, flying or floating, laughing or 
weeping, sighing or singing, pouting or kissing, they are 
lovely underbodies, which no German critic would for a mo- 
ment hesitate to take to his visionary arms; but we are such 
a people for " beef" We cry aloud for soul — we want more 
soul — we want to be inspired — and the instant any thing is 
floated before our ken which might serve as an aerial guide 
to the Elysian Valley, or the Temple of the Spirit, then we 
instantly begin to utter the war-cry of " dreamy folly !" 
" mystical mystery !" and urged by the faith (the beef) that 
is in us, continue our lowing for the calf, that surely cometh, 
but cannot satisfy our better cravings. 

Continuing our inquiries into the fruits of Tennyson's 
early excursions in dream-land, we perceive that he was in- 
clined, even when upon commoner ground, to accept the 
fantasy of things for the things themselves. His Muse was 
his own Lady of Shalott — she was metamorphosed into the 
Merman and the Mermaid, and, reuniting at the bottom of 
the sea, lay swelling with the sense of ages beneath enor- 
mous growths upon the surface, in the form of the Kraken. 
Why this latter poem should have been omitted in the pres- 
ent collection puzzles and annoys us as much as his inser- 
tion of " the Goose," and one or two other such things. But 
nothing in this class of subjects is more remarkable, than the 
power he possesses of communicating to simple incidents and 
objects of reality, a preternatural spirit as part of the en- 
chantment of the scene. Of this kind, in the dim and deso- 
late chamber of the moated grange, where; Mariana, in the 

; anguish of mingled hope and despair, moaned away her 

idreary life — of this kind, to her morbid fancy, was the blue 
fly that " sung i' the pane ;" and the mouse that ''behind 

,ithe mouldering wainscot shrieked." We have heard it 
asked, as such questions always are asked by numbers — 

5 what more there was in this than the mere details of a 
description of squalidness and desertion? The best answer 

10 



202 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

was recently made by * * * " Why," said he, " don't 
you know that this ghastly fly had been bred of a corpse — 
and knew it ? As for the mouse, it had clearly been the poor 
starved niece of a witch, and the witch had murdered her, her 
soul passing into the body of a mouse by reason of foul rela- 
tionship." This, at least, was accepting a suggestion at full. 
In such a spirit of imaginative promptitude and coincidence 
should such things be read, ornothing will comeofthereading. 

" Old faces glimmered through the doors, 
Old footsteps trod the upper floors, 
Old voices called her from without!" 

But since " the low sky raining" in the autumn eve, 
when the white-robed dying form of the Lady of Shalott 
floated in the boat towards the many-towered palaces of the 
Knights, a marked change has come over the genius of this 
poet with regard to his lemale characters. Instead of the 
scions of the fairy-race, most of whom seem to have been the 
poet's " cousin " — a consanguinity which evidently haunts 
him — we had in the volume of 1832, some equally beautiful 
women, such as the " Miller's Daughter," " Margaret," and 
the proud "Lady Clara Vere de Vere ;' while, in the vol- 
ume last given to the public, there are several more, and not 
a single additional sylph. L'ere we find him not orfly awake 
to the actual world, but awake with a set of totally new ex- 
periences. In no writer is the calm intensity of pure affec- 
tion, both in its extreme tenderness and continuity, more ex- 
quisitely portrayed than in the poems of the " Miller's Daugh- 
ter," " Dora," and the " Gardener's Daughter." They are 
steeped in the very sweetest fountains of the human heart. 

In the description of pastoral nature in England, no one 
has ever surpassed Tennyson. The union of fidelity to na- 
ture and extreme beauty is scarcely to be found in an equal 
degree in any other writer. There may sometimes be a tone 
of colour, and the sense of a sustained warmth in the tem- 
perature, which is rather Italian ; and this is a peculiarity 
of our poets, who invariably evade notice or consciousness 
of the four seasons in each day, which is a characteristic of | 
our climate. The version which all English poets give of 
" Spring," more especially, is directly at variance with what 
every body feels and knows of that bitter season in this 
country. But allowing for this determination to make the 
best of what we have, no poet more closely adheres to nature. 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 203 

He is generally as sweet, and fresh, and faithful in his draw- 
ing and colouring of a landscape, as the prose pastorals of 
Miss Mitford, which is saying the utmost we can for a pos- 
sessor of those qualifications. But besides this, Tennyson 
idealizes, as a poet should, wherever his subject needs it — 
not so much as Shelley and Keats, but as much as the oc- 
Ccision will bear, without undue preponderance, or interfer- 
ing with the harmony of his general design. His land- 
scapes often have the truthful ideality of Claude, combined 
with the refined reality of Calcott, or the homely richness 
of Gainsborough. The landscape-painting of Keats was 
more like the back grounds of Titian and Annibal Carrac- 
ci ; as that of Shelley often resen;bled the pictures of Tur- 
ner. We think the extraordinary power of language in 
Shelley sometimes even accomplished, not only the wild 
brilliancy of colouring, but the apparently impossible effect, 
by words, of the wonderful aerial perspective of Turner — as 
where he speaks of the loftiest star of heaven " pinnacled 
dim in the intense inane." But with Tennyson there is no 
tendency to inventiveness in his descriptions of scenery ; 
he contents himself with the loveliness of the truth seen 
through the medium of such emotion as belongs to the 
subject he has in hand But as these emotions are often 
of profound passion, sentiment, reflection, or tenderness, it 
may well be conceived that his painting is of that kind 
which is least common in art. The opening of " Q^none" 
is a good example, and is a fine prelude to love's delirium, 
which follows it. 

r, " Tliere lies^i vale in Ida, lovelier 

Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, 
Puts forth an arm and creeps from pine to pine, 
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down 
Hang rich in flowers, and fur helow them roars 
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine 
In cataract after cataract to the sea." 

If Alfred Tennyson became awake to the actual world 
in his second volume of 1832, his publication in 1843 show- 
ed him more completely so ; awake after the storm, after the 
wrecks, the deepest experiences of life. In the ten years' 
liaterval he has known and suffered. So far from any of his 
^private personal feelings being paraded before the public, 
ither directly, or by means of characters which every body 



204 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

shall recognize as identical, after the fashion of Lord Byron, 
there is a withdrawal from every identification, and general- 
ly a veil of ideality cast over the whole. Certainly Tenny- 
son is not at all dramatic. That he can be intensely tragic, 
in pure emotion and deep passion of expression, we shall 
presently show ; that he has great power of concentration, 
will be equally apparent; and that in his powerful monodra- 
maof'St. Simeon Stylites," and in the various imagina- 
tive or fanciful personages he introduces, he presents full 
evidence of the faculty of self-absorption in the identity of 
other idiosyncrasies, we think also to be incontestable. Still 
he only selects a peculiar class of characters — those in 
whom it shall not be requisite to dispossess himself of 
beauty (Stylites being the only exception) ; nor can he 
speak without singing. His style of blank verse is elegiac, 
epic, heroic, or suited to the idyl ; and not at all dramatic. 
His characters, as we have said before, are generalizations 
or abstractions; they pass before the imagination, and often 
into the very centre of the heart and all its emotions; they 
do not stand forth conspicuous in bone or muscle, nor in 
solidity, nor roundness, nor substantial identity. They have 
no little incidental touches of character, and we should not 
know them if we met them out of his poetry. They do 
not eat and drink, and sneeze. One never thought of that 
before ; and it seems an oftence to hint at such a thing con- 
cerning them. But besides all this, our poet cannot laugh 
outright in his verses ; not joyously, and with self-abandon- 
ment. His comic, grotesque, or burlesque pieces, are -nei- 
ther natural nor wild. They are absolute failures by dint 
of ingenuity. His "Amphion" and "the Goose" have 
every thing but that which such attempts most need — ani- 
mal spirits. There is something intermediate, however, 
which he can do, and which is ten thousand times more un- 
common, — that of an harmonious blending of the poetical 
and familiar, so that the latter shall neither destroy the 
former, nor vex the taste of the reader. As an instance of this, 
we would quote " Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue," 
which is perfection ; as also were Shelley's poetical " Let- 
ter to ," and his " Julian and Maddalo." Of the con- 
structive power, and the distribution of action required in a 
dramatic composition, there is no need to speak ; but it is 
time to consider the tragic faculties of our author, and his 
power over the passions by description. 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 205 

The frequent tendency to the development or illustra- 
tion of tragic emotion has been less noticed than any other 
important feature of Tennyson's poetry. In his first volume 
(lcS30) we find a "Dirge;" the "Death of Love ;" the 
"Ballad of Oriana ;" the "Supposed Confession:" and 
" Mariana;" all of which are full of the emotions and 
thoughts which lead directly, if they do not involve, tragic 
results. The same may be said of the following poems in 
the second volume (1832): — the "Lady of Shalott ;" 
"Eleanor;" "Sappho" (called " Fatima " in the new 
edition!); " O^none ;" the "New Year's Eve;" and the 
" Sisters." Upon this last-named poem we will venture a 
few remarks and suggestions. 

" The Sisters" is a ballad poem of six stanzas, each of 
only four lines, with two lines of a chorus sung by the 
changeful roaring of the wind " in turret and tree" — which 
is made to appear conscious of the passions that are at 
work. In this brief space is comprised, fully told, and with 
many suggestions beyond, a deep tragedy. 

The story is briefly this. A youthful earl of great per- 
sonal attractions, seduces a young lady of family, deserts 
her, and she dies. Her sister, probably an elder sister, and 
not of equal beauty, had, apparently, also loved the earl. 
I When, therefore, she found that not only had her love been 
, in vain, but her self-sacrifice in favour of her sister had only 
I led to the misery and degradation of the latter, she resolved 
on the earl's destruction. She exerted herself to the utmost 
. to attract his regard ; she " hated him with the hate of hell," 
I but, it is added, that she " loved his beauty passing well," 
I for the earl " was fair to see." Abandoning herself in every 
•iway to the accomplishment of her purpose, she finally lulled 
him to sleep, with his head in her lap, and then stabbed him 
. " through and through." She composed and smoothed the 
I curls upon "his comely head," admiring to see that "he 
looked so grand when he was dead ;" and wrapping him in 
a winding sheet, she carried him to his proud ancestral hall, 
and " laid him at his mother's feet." 
ri We have no space to enter into any psychological ex- 
lamination of the peculiar character of this sister; with re- 
; gard, however, to her actions, the view that seems most 
iifeasible, and the most poetical, if not equally tragic, is that 
i she did not actually commit the self-abandonment and mur- 



206 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

der ; but went mad on the death of her sister, and imagined 
in her delirium all that has been related. But " read the 
part " how we may, there never was a deeper thing told in 
briefer words. 

The third volume of " Tennyson's Poems " (that is, 
the Vol. II. of the new edition last issued) contains several 
tragic subjects. The one most penetrating to the heart, the 
most continuous, and most persevered in with passionate 
intensity, so that it becomes ineradicable from the sensi- 
bility and the memory, is " Locksley Hall." The story is 
very simple ; not narrative, but told by the soliloquy of an- 
guish poured out by a young man amid the hollow weed- 
grown courts of a ruined mansion. He loved passionately ; 
his love was returned; and the girl married another, — a 
dull, every-day sort of husband. The story is a familiar 
one in the world — too familiar ; but in Tennyson's hands it 
becomes invested with yet deeper life, a vitality of hopeless 
desolation. The sufferer invoking his betrayer, her beauty 
and her falsehood, by the memory of their former happi- 
ness, says that such a memory is the very crown of sor- 
row : — 

" Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, 
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof. 

Like a dog he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, 
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. 

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, 
To thy widowed marriage-pillow, to the tears that thou shalt weep. 

Thou shalt hear the '' Never ! never !" whispered by the phantom years. 
And a song from out the distance, in the ringing of thine ears ; 

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. 
******** 

Of similar character and depth of tone is the poem of 
" Lady Clara Vere de Vere," who impelled to suicide one 
of the victims of her heartless beauty. The long-drawn 
music of her very name is suggestive of the proud pedigree 
to which she was ready to offer up any sacrifice. For con- 
tinuity of affectionate tenderness and deep pathos in the 
closing scene, we should mention " The Lord of Burleigh," 
and the idyl of" Dora," — the style of both being studiously 
artless, the latter, indeed, having a Scriptural simplicity 
which presents a curious contrast to the poet's early man- 
ner. In the poem of " Love and Duty " there is a general 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 207 

tone of suppressed emotion, and violent effort against nature, 
which is deeply painful. The equal tenderness and bitter- 
ness of the anguish renders it the more difficult to receive 
with that feeling of resignation and sense of right which 
one would wish for, on such heart-breaking occasions. It 
is to be feared that some conventionalities have been erected 
into undue tyrannies over the noblest and most impassioned 
impulses, although the poet, not choosing to be more ex- 
plicit in his story, or its suggestions, may not have intended 
to illustrate any such principle. The clear course of feeling 
in the two preceding poems, which are equally pathetic and 
conclusive, will generally be preferable, even to the more 
intensely tragic emotion of this latter one. 

It remains to offer a remark on two or three other poems 
which also form the most striking features of the present 
collection. 

With respect to " CEnone," it is an exquisitely success- 
ful attempt of the poet to infuse his own beating heart's 
blood into the pale blind statues of the antique times; and 
loses no jot of the majesty, while the vitality informs the 
grace. It is not surpassed by any thing of the kind in 
Keats, or Shelley, or Landor. The " Morte D' Arthur " 
precisely reverses the design of the Greek revival ; and, with 
equal success, draws back the Homeric blood and spirit to 
inspire a romantic legend. 

Of the "Ulysses" we would say that the mild dignity 
and placid resolve — the steady wisdom after the storms of 
life, and with the prospect of future storms — the melancholy 
fortitude, yet kingly resignation to his destiny which gives 
him a restless passion for wandering — the unaffected and 
unostentatious modesty and self-conscious power, — the long 
softened shadows of memory cast from the remote vistas of 
practical knowledge and experience, with a suffusing tone 
of ideality breathing over the whole, and giving a saddened 
charm even to the suggestion of a watery grave, — all this, 
and much more, independent of the beautiful picturesque- 
ness of the scenery, render the poem of " Ulysses " one of 
the most exquisite (as it has hitherto been one of the least 
noticed) poems in the language. 

It would be impossible to give that full consideration to 
the extraordinary poem of " St. Simeon Stylites," which as 
a work of genius it merits, without entering into complex- 



208 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

ities of the passions, mind, and human character, under the 
excitement and involuntary as well as wilful hallucinations 
of fanaticism, for which we could afford no adequate space. 
We must content ourselves with saying that it is a great and 
original " study." 

There are no qualities in Tennyson more characteristic 
than those of delicacy and refinement. How very few are 
the poets who could equally well have dealt with the dan- 
gerous loveliness of the story of "Godiva." 

" Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there 
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt, 
The grim Earl's gift ; but ever at a breath 
She lingered, looking like a summer moon 
Half-dipt in cloud : anon she shook her head. 
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee ; 
Unclad herself in haste ; adown the stair 
Stole on ; and like a creeping sunbeam, slid 
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached 
The gateway," &.c. 

The mind which can force up a vital flower of ideality 
through the heavy fermenting earth of human experiences, 
must have a deep intellectual root and active life. Among 
these experiences we must of course include those inner 
struggles of the soul with its own thoughts ; dealings with 
the revelations that seem to come from other states of ex- 
istence ; difficult contests between the mortal promptings 
and resistances that breed so many doubts and hopes, and 
things inscrutable ; and thoughts that often present them- 
selves in appalling whispers, against the will and general 
tone and current of the mind. Tennyson's intellectual 
habit is of great strength ; his thoughts can grow with large 
progressive purpose either up or down, and the peculiarity 
is that in him they commonly do so to " a haunting music." 
No argument was ever conducted in verse with more ad- 
mirable power and clearness than that of the " Two Voices." 
The very poetry of it magnifies itself into a share of the 
demonstration : take away the poetry and the music, and 
you essentially diminish the logic. 

Though Tennyson often writes, or rather sings appa- 
rently from his own personality, you generally find that he 
does not refer to himself, but to some imaginary person. He 
permits the reader to behold the workings of his individu- 
ality, only by its reflex action. He comes out of himself to 
sing a poem, and goes back again ; or rather sends his song 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 209 

out from his shadow under the leaf, as other nightingales 
do ; and refuses to be expansive to his public, opening his 
heart on the hinges of music, as other poets do. We know 
notliing of him except that he is a poet; and this, although 
it is something to be sure of, does not help us to pronounce 
distinctly upon what may be called the mental intention of 
his poetry. 

Whatever he writes is a complete work : he holds the 
unity of it as firmly in his hand as his GCnone's Paris holds 
the apple — and there is nothing broken or incomplete in his 
two full volumes. His few " fragments" are entire in them- 
selves, and suggest the remainder. But for all this unity 
of every separate poem produced by him, there is, or ap- 
pears to be, some vacillation of intention, in his poetry as 
a mass. To any question upon the character of his early 
works, the reply rises obviously, — they are from dream-land ; 
and of the majority of those which he has since produced, 
the same answer should be returned. The exceptive in- 
stances are like those of one who has not long awakened 
from his dreams. But what dreams these have been — of 
wliat loveliness of music, form, and colour, and what 
thoughtfulness — our foregoing remarks have very faintly 
expressed and declared. In the absence of any marked 
and perceptible design in his poetical faith and purposes, 
Tennyson is not singular. It would be equally difficult to 
decide the same question with regard to several others ; nor 
perhaps is it necessary to be decided. As the matter rests 
in this instance, we have the idea of a poet (his volumes in 
our hands) who is not in a fixed attitude ; not resolute as to 
means, not determined as to end — sure of his power, sure 
of his activity, but not sure of his objects. There appears 
to be some want of the sanctification of a spiritual consis- 
tency ; or a liability at intervals to resign himself to the 
" Lotos Eaters." We seem to look on while a man stands 
in preparation for some loftier course — while he tries the 
edge of his various arms and examines the wheels of his cha- 
riots, and meditates, full of youth and capability, down the 
long slope of glory. He constantly gives us the impression 
of something greater than his works. And this must be 
his own soul. He may do greater things than he has yet 
done ; but we do not expect it. If he do no more, he has 

10* 



210 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

already done enough to deserve the lasting love and admi- 
ration of posterity. 

Alfred Tennyson is the son of a clergyman of Lincoln- 
shire. He went through the usual routine of a University 
education at Trinity College, Cambridge. He has brothers 
and sisters living, who are all possessed of superior attain- 
ments. Avoiding general society, he would prefer to sit up 
all night talking with a friend, or else to sit " and think 
alone." Beyond a very small circle he is never to be met. 
There is nothing eventful in his biography, of a kind which 
would interest the public; and wishing to respect the retire- 
ment he unaffectedly desires, we close the present paper. 



T. B. MACAULAY. 



" YeE, from the records of my youthful state, 
And from the lore of bards and sages old, 
From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create, 

******** 
Have I collected language to unfold 
Truth to my countrymen." 

Shellet. 

" Arma, virumque," &c. 

Virgil. 

" And in triumphant chair was set on high 
The ancient glorie of tlie Roman peers." 

Spenser. 

TiioBiAs Babington Macaulay is the son of Zachary 
Macaulay, well known as the friend of Wilberforce, and, 
though himself an African merchant, one of the most ar- 
dent abolitionists of slavery. In 1818, T. B Macaulay be- 
came a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 
took his Bachelor's degree in 1822. He distinguished him- 
self as a student, having obtained a scholarship, twice gain- 
ed the Chancellor's medal for English verse, and also gained 
the second Craven Scholarship, the highest honour in clas- 
sics which the University confers. Owing to his dislike of 
mathematics, he did not compete for honours at graduation, 
but nevertheless he obtained a Fellowship at the October 
competition open to graduates of Trinity, which he appears 
to have resigned before his subsequent departure for India. 
He devoted much of his time to the "Union" debating 
Society, where he was reckoned an eloquent speaker. 

Mr. Macaulay studied at Lincoln's Inn, and was called 
to the bar in 1820. In the same year his " Essay on Milton " 
appeared in the " Edinburgh Review ;" and out of Lord (then 
Mr.) Jeffrey's admiration of that paper, arose an intimate 
friendship. Macaulay, visiting Scotland soon afterwards, 
went the circuit with Mr. Jeffrey. His connection with 



212 T. B. MACAULAY. 

the " Edinburgh Review " has continued at intervals ever 
since. 

By the Whig administration Mr. Macaulay was appoint- 
ed Commissioner of Bankrupts. He commenced his parlia- 
mentary career about the same period, as member for Colne 
in the reform Parliament of 1832, and again for Leeds in 
J 834, at which time he was secretary to the India Board. 
His seat was, however, soon relinquished, for in the same 
year he was appointed member of the Supreme Council 
in Calcutta, under the East India Company's new charter. 

Arriving in Calcutta, in September, 1834, Mr. Macaulay 
shortly assumed an important trust in addition to his seat at 
the Council. At the request of the Governor-general, Lord 
William Bentinck, he becam.e President of the commission 
of five, appointed to frame a penal code for India ; and the 
principal provisions of this code have been attributed to him. 
One of its enactments, in particular, was so unpopular among 
the English inhabitants, as to receive the appellation of the 
" Black Act." It abolished the right of appeal from the 
Local Courts to the Supreme Court at the Presidency, 
hitherto exclusively enjoyed by Europeans, and put them on 
the same footing with natives, giving to both an equal right 
of appeal to the highest Provincial Courts. Inconvenience 
and delay of justice had been caused by the original prac- 
tice, even when India was closed against Europeans in gene- 
ral, but such practice was obviously incompatible with the 
rights and property of the natives under the new system of 
opening the country to general resort. This measure of 
equal justice, however, exposed Mr. Macaulay, to whom it 
was universally attributed, to outrageous personal attacks in 
letters, pamphlets, and at public meetings. 

The various reforms and changes instituted by Lord W. 
Bentinck and Lord Auckland, were advocated in general 
by Mr. Macaulay. He returned to England in 1838. 

Mr. Macaulay was elected member for Edinburgh on 
the liberal interest in 1839 ; and being appointed Secretary 
at War, he was re-elected the following year, and again at 
the general election in 1841. No review of his political 
career is here intended ; although in relation to literature, 
it should be mentioned that he opposed Mr. Serjeant Tal- 
fourd's Copyright Bill, and was the principal agent in 
defeating it. As a public speaker, he usually displays ex- 



T. B. MACAULAY. 213 

tensive information, close reasoning, and eloquence ; and 
has recently bid fair to rival the greatest names among our 
English orators. His conversation in private is equally 
brilliant and instructive. 

Mr. Macaulay may fairly be regarded as the first critical 
and historical essayist of the time. It is not meant to be 
inferred that there are not other writers who display as much 
understanding and research, as great, perhaps greater capa- 
city of appreciating excellence, as much acuteness and hu- 
mour, and a more subtle power of exciting, or of measur- 
ing, the efforts of the intellect and the imagination, besides 
possessing an equal mastery of language in their own pecu- 
liar style ; but there is no other writer who combines so 
large an amount of all those qualities, with the addition of 
a mastery of style, at once highly classical and most exten- 
sively popular. His style is classical, because it is so cor- 
rect ; and it is popular because it must be intelligible with- 
out effort to every educated understanding. 

In the examination of the " Critical and Historical Es- 
says " of Mr. Macaulay, it would have been our wish, as the 
most genial and agreeable proceeding, to commence with 
that unqualified admiration which so large a portion of his 
labours justly merits. But unfortunately he has written a 
"Preface." It scarcely occupies two pages, yet presents a 
stumbling-block in our course ; and, in that spirit of free 
discussion adopted by Mr. Macaulay himself throughout his 
volumes, he will pardon our stating certain objections which 
we cannot quietly overcome in our own minds. 

" Tlie autlior of these Essays is so sensible of their defects, that he has repeat- 
edly refused to let them appear in a form which might seem to indicate that he 
thought them worthy of a permanent place in English literature. Nor would he now 
give his consent to the republication of pieces so imperfect, if, by withholding his 
consent, he could make republication impossible. Dut as they have been reprinted 
more than once in the United Sates," &c. 

Preface. 

This, tlierefore, being unfortunately the state of affairs, 
of course we expect to be told that the author has now care- 
fully revised productions which he had been so anxious to 
suppress from a sense of their incompleteness. 

" No attempt has been made to remodel any of the pieces which are contained in 
these volumes. Even the criticism on Milton, which was written when the author 
was fresh from college, and which contains scarcely a paragraph such as his matured 
juilgnieitt approves, still remains overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful o.nament." 

Preface. 



214 T. B* MACAULAV. 

Nevertheless, in this condition Mr, Macaulay reprints 
his Essays, now that, whether willingly or unwillingly, he 
sends them forth in the form which authors adopt who think 
their works worthy of a permanent place in literature, An 
odd compliment, by the way, to the admiration expressed by 
Lord Jeffrey of this very paper. How are we to proceed ? 
The critical author has placed all his fraternity in a very 
anomalous, not to say rather grotesque position. For if we 
object to any thing, especially in the essay on Milton, the 
author will have been beforehand with us — he kneiv all that 
himself; and if we admire any thing, he may smile and say, 
" Ah, I thought pretty well of it myself when I was a very 
young man." 

But these Essays have gone forth to do their work in the 
world, and the Essay on Milton, among the rest, will exer- 
cise its appointed degree of influence ; though it " contains 
scarcely a paragraph such as the author's mature judgment 
approves " — and, we will venture to add, contains certain 
positions which are very mischievous to the popular mind. 

We will proceed as though no Preface had been written. 
Our objections shall not meddle with the style, nor do we 
think its redundancy of ornament so prominent an annoy- 
ance as the author intimates. Our objections are of a more 
serious nature ; founded on confused views of truth and fic- 
tion, of reality and ideality, and leading directly to the ques- 
tion of whether Shakspeare and Milton ought to be regarded 
in any respect as lunatics. 

" Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can ever enjoy poetry, without a certain 
unsoundness of mind, if any thing which gives so much pleasure ought to be called 
unsoundness." 

Essays, vol. i. p. 7. 

The position is guarded and qualified, in the above quo- 
tation, but presently it comes out in all its fulness. The 
author, be it understood, explains that he means poetry, im- 
passioned and imaginative poetry ; not mere verse-making, 
but poetry of the highest order. And what the world has 
been hitherto accustomed to regard in the light of an in- 
spiration, the essayist wishes to teach us to consider as the 
product of an unsound mind. It is even catching, and 
those who read may rave. " The greatest of poets," he 
says, " has described it in lines which are valuable on ac- 



T. B MACAULAY. 215 

count of the just notion which they convey of the art in 
which he excelled : 

" As imagination bodies fortli 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

Now all this, which so palpably implies creative power, 
suggests to the essayist an unsound creator. 

" These are the fruits of the ' fine frenzy ' which he ascribes to the poet — a fine 
frenzy, doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry ; but it is 
the truth of madness." 

Ibid. p. 8. 

Surely the young essayist must have heard of the " nor'- 
west madness?" But he suflTered himself to be misled by 
the imperfect comparison with the reasonings of mad people, 
" which are just ; but the premises are false." A few lines 
farther on, observing how much '• a little girl is affected by 
the story of poor Red Riding-hood " he adds — " She knows 
that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there are 
no wolves in England. Yet in spite of her knowledge she 
believes, she weeps, she trembles," &lc. That is the point. 
There is no madness in the matter ; those who are mad, do 
not know that their premises are false. With respect to poetry, 
it is no unsoundness of mind ; but the surrendering up of 
the feelings to certain operations of the mind, — which hap- 
pens in other things besides poetry, and no one thinks of 
calling it madness. After this, come the usual remarks 
about " the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated 
minds" (Greece and Rome for instance?), the "rude state 
of society," and the influence of poetry dwindling with the 
" improvements " of civilization, but " lingering longest 
among the peasantry," — all of whom are excessively addict- 
ed to Wordsworth and Shelley. Finally, " as the light of 
knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions" — 

" The hues and lineaments of the phantoms which the poet calls up, grow fainter 
and fainter. Wc cannot unite the incompatible advantages of reality and deception, 
the clear discernment of truth and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction." 

Ibid. p. 9. 

As if fiction involved no truth — no realities ! — as if 
there were not a larger amount of truth in fiction than in 
any knoion reality. Moreover, we are told, and truly, (in 
the Essay on " Moore's Life of Lord Byron," Vol. L page 



216 T. B. MACAULAY. 

332,) that " the heart of man is the province of poetry, 
and of poetry alone." With madness, therefore, at heart, 
as well as in the head, we are in a pretty condition ! It 
could hardly have been on this account that Lord Jeffrey 
M'as so pleased with the essay. Entertaining, as we do, the 
most unaffected respect for the " mature judgment" of Mr. 
Macaulay, and a sincere admiration of his great powers and 
acquirements, we must be permitted to express our regret — 
all the more strongly for that very respect and admiration — 
that he did n )t think fit to exercise them in revising the 
crude philosophy of a young gentleman " fresh from college," 
instead of sending it abroad to do its work of injurious in- 
fluence upon the mind of our not \'exy finely frenzied public — 
a public of itself, by no means disposed to regard poets or 
their works with too much estimation, except as matter of 
national boasting. Once convince and fortify John Bull in 
the opinion that to read poetry and cultivate his imaginative 
faculties will render him liable to aberration of mind, and it 
is all over with him, and the poets. He has half suspected 
this for a long time : his unsoundness is already on the other 
side. Or does our classic Essayist and right Roman lyrist 
make an exception in favour of the mental soundness of 
Songs of the Sword — of bards and readers on war-steeds — 
of statesmen who M'rite poetry in steel helmets? 

In the same essay we are also obliged to object to the 
remark that the Prometheus of iEschylus " bears undoubt- 
edly a considerable resemblance to the Satan of Milton," 
because "in both we find the same impatience of control, 
the same ferocity , the same unconquerable pride." At page 
348 of this volume, we also find a comparison made with 
some of the Byronic heroes " who are sick of life, who are 
at war with society, who are supported in their anguish 
only by an unconquerable pride, resembling that of Prome- 
theus on the rock, or of Satan in the burning marl," &c. 
Here we find individual ambition and morbid dissatisfaction 
confounded with the loftiest sympathies — demoniac pride 
with the pride of the Champion of Humanity. On the 
other hand we have, elsewhere,* an equal extravagance in 
the way. of eulogium, when the " harsh, dark features of 

* In the Essay on " Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden," vol. i. pp. 450, 1, 2, 
where Strafford, the same more than siiperhumanly majestic nobleman, is fairly shown 
to have been an avaricious and despotic renegade. 



T. B. MACAULAY. 217 

the Earl of Strafford " are said to have been ** ennobled by 
their expression into 7nore than the majesty of an antique 
Jupiter," — as though there could be any comparison be- 
tween the finest practical head, and the finest ideal one, 
which could be fair towards either. 

Let it not be supposed, however, that we do not find 
much to admire in the essay on Milton — hazardous as such 
a declaration may be, after what the author has himself said 
of it. Having duly deliberated, however, we will venture 
to express great admiration of the passages on " revolution," 
at pp. 39, 40, 41 (which we commend to Sir E. L. Bul- 
wer's especial attention) ; and also of the character of Crom- 
well, at pp. 45, 46 — which we commend to the especial 
attention of the " authority," who seems to be so short- 
sighted as to contemplate the exclusion of all pictorial 
recognition of the Commonwealth from the new Houses of 
Parliament.* 

Few essays were ever sent abroad in the world more 
calculated to improve the public understanding, and direct 
its moral feelings aright, than those on " Moore's Life of 
Byron;" " Machiavelli," and " Boswell's Life of Johnson." 
They contain many passages of sterling philosophy in the 
analysis and elucidation of character, in principles and con- 
ditions of public and private morality, and in matters of 
literary taste ; all of which are set forth with unanswerable 
arguments and admirable illustrations. Among the latter 
we cannot forbear noticing the equally acute and amusing 
remarks on the hypocritical public horror at Lord Byron's 
separation from his wife, and because Edmund Kean " had 
disturbed the conjugal felicity of an alderman," — common 
occurrences, of which the world takes no sort of notice be- 
yond the newspaper paragraphs of the day, except about 
once in seven years, and then " the public decency requires 
a victim." His remarks on Dr. Johnson are excellent, and 
while they do every justice to all the good qualities of the 
" great man " of his day, will materially assist in leading 
the public mind at last to perceive how constantly Dr. John- 
son, in philosophy, in morals, and in criticism, was quite as 
wrong as he was pompous and overbearing. 

The article on Warren Hastings is a model of biography. 

* February the 22(1. 



218 " T. B. MACAULAY. 

It is biography of the most difficult kind ; that, namely, in 
which the character and actions of the individual subject 
cannot be portrayed without a comprehensive history of the 
times in which he lived. Such writings are apt to be ex- 
ceedingly tedious, and in fact to present a mixture of two 
styles of composition, that of the historian and that of the 
biographer, fitted together as they best may be. But in the 
case before us, while the state of the political world, the 
progress of events, the aspects of parties, the peculiar con- 
dition of the great continent of India, the characteristics of 
its various races, are all presented distinctly, and held con- 
stantly before the mind as they in succession change, swell 
into importance, or fade into obscurity, in the onward march 
of time; — so, with equal distinctness and constancy, is the 
individual Warren Hastings always held present to the 
imagination, as those events, and scenes, and characteristics 
acted upon him, or he acted upon them. The man stands 
revealed in this clear picture of his circumstances and his 
actions. We do not require to be told what was the pecu- 
liar nature of his intellect, his moral perceptions, his tem- 
perament. These we deduce from the history ; any occa- 
sional remark upon him in the way of metaphysical analysis 
we read as a corollary, and can only say, 'just so,' or ' of 
course.' Perhaps a skilful physiognomist might even pro- 
nounce on the features of his face after reading the whole. 
With the same skill as that displayed in presenting the his- 
tory of his time, the men who surrounded him are brought 
on the scene. 

Of the masterly essay on " Lord Bacon " we must con- 
tent ourselves with saying that it is in itself a great work of 
harmoniously united history, biography, and criticism, each 
of the highest class, and of which there is not a single page 
without its weight and value. 

Mr. Macaulay possesses great powers of logical criticism; 
a fine and manly taste and judgment ; a quick sense of the 
absurd, with an acute perception of the illogical ; great fair- 
ness, and love of truth and justice. His prose is a model of 
style. It is sculpturesque by its clearness, its solidity, its 
simplicity, without any mannerism or affectation, and by its 
regularity. But this regularity is not of marble equability ; 
the strong and compacted sentences rather presenting the 
appearance of a Cyclopean wall, with the outer surface 



T. B. MACAULAY. 219 

polished. Continually the matter is of similar character 
with this style, and a brief section contains the growth of 
ages. Many single sentences might be adduced, in which 
are compressed clearly and without crowding, the sum of 
prolonged historical records, their chief events and most in- 
fluential men, and how the events and the men acted and 
re-acted upon each other. 

Mr. Macaulay has great and singular ability in making 
difficult questions clear, and the most unpromising subjects 
amusing. A good example of this may be found in his 
review of " Southey's Colloquies on Society," where 
Macaulay displays Southey's errors and wrong-headedness, 
and what the true state of the case is with respect to the 
currency, the national debt, and finance, — subjects which 
Literature had always considered as dry and impracticable 
as a rope of sand, but which in Mr. Macaulay's hands be- 
come not only intelligible and instructive, but incredibly 
entertaining. 

Notwithstanding the many excellent remarks on poets 
and poetical productions, occurring in the course of his 
volumes — and the acuteness displayed, not only in what Mr. 
Macaulay says of the so-called " correctness" of Pope, and 
Addison, and Gray, (as though their descriptions of men 
and external nature were not far less correct than those of 
the Elizabethan poets,) but in the more admiring tone he 
occasionally takes, — it might still have been doubted whether 
a writer, in whom the understanding faculty predominates, 
would be able to make that degree of surrender of its power, 
which the fullest appreciation of poetry requires. He might 
fear it would argue " unsoundness." Hovvbeit, in certain 
remarks on Shelley, we see that he can make the requisite 
surrender to one, whose poetry, of all others, needs it, in 
order to be rightly estimated. And it is a part of the means 
of forming the best judgment of poetical productions to 
know when, and how far that faculty should abandon itself, 
and receive a dominant emotion as fresh material for subse- 
quent judgment. 

The last publication of Mr. Macaulay — his " Lays of 
Ancient Rome" — may fairly be called, not an exhumation 
of decayed materials, but a reproduction of classical vitali- 
ty. The only thing we might object to, is the style and 
form of his metres and rhythms, which are not classical, 



T. B. MACAULAY. 

but Gothic, and often remind us of the "Percy Reliques." 
There is no attempt to imitate the ancient metres. In other 
respects these Lays are Roman to the back-bone ; and 
where not so, they are Homeric. The events and subjects of 
the poems are chosen with an heroic spirit ; there is ail the 
hard glitter of steel about the lines! — their music is the 
neighing of steeds, and the tramp of armed heels : their 
inspiration was the voice of a trumpet. 

" And nearer fast and nearer 

Unth the red whirlwind come , 
And louder still and still more loud, 
From underneath that rolling cloud, 
Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 

The trampling and the hum. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears. 
Far to left and far to right, 
In broken gleams of dark-Liluo light. 
The long array of helmets bright. 
The long array of spears." 
*■ * * * 

" And backward now and forward 

Wavers the deep array ; 
And on the tossing sea of steel, 
To and fro the standards reel ; 
And the victoiious trumpet-peal 

Dies fitfully away." 

HORATIUS. 



THOMAS HOOD 

AND 

THE LATE THEODORE HOOK. 



" Or send to us 

Thy wit's great overplus : 

But teach us yet 
Wisely to husband it ; » 

Lest we that talent spend : ' 
And having once brought to an end 
That precious stock ; the stoie 
Of sucii a wit : the world should have no more.'' 

Herrick. 

" Have gentility, and scorn every man !" 

Be:* Jonso-. 

" And laughter oft is but an art 

To drown the outcry of the heart." 

Hartley Coleridge. 

" Act freely, carelessly, and capriciously ; as if our veins ran with quicksilver ; 
and not utter a phrase but what shall come forth steepod in the very brine of conceit, 
and sparkle like salt in fire," 

Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels. 

Thrue are some writers, whose popularity has been so 
long established, is so well deserved, and about the character 
of whose genius there is so correct a general impression in 
the mind of the public, that very little more need be said 
about them. But these are few in number. For, although 
it is not uncommon for the majority to be tolerably unani- 
mous in its opinion of a favourite, it certainly very rarely 
occurs that such opinion is so perfectly satisfactory as to 
leave no opportunity and no wish to offer any further com- 
ment upon the individual or his works. Such, however, is 
the case with regard to Thomas Hood ; and almost in an 
equal degree as to the late Theodore Hook; though the 
men are very different. We shall do little more, therefore, 



222 THOMAS HOOD AND 

than endeavour to arrange and illustrate in a compact form, 
what we believe to be the popular impressions of both. 

Mr. Hood possesses an original wealth of humour, in- 
vention, and an odd sort of wit that should rather be called 
whimsicality, or a faculty of the " high fantastic." Among 
comic writers he is one of those who also possess genuine 
pathos ; it is often deep, and of much tenderness, occasional 
sweetness of expression, and full of melancholy memories. 
The predominating characteristics of his genius are Immor- 
ous fancies grafted upon melancholy impressions. It is a 
curious circumstance, that in his " Whims and Oddities" of 
bygone years, the majority of them, by far, turned upon 
some painful physicality. A boy roaring under the rod — a 
luckless individual being thrown over a horse's head — an 
old man with his night-cap on fire — a clergyman with his 
wig accidentally caught oft' his head by a pitch-fork — a man 
pursued by a bull, — skeletons, death, duels — cats with mice, 
dogs with kettles, — &c. These are the kind of things (we 
do not recollect if all these are actually in his books) in 
which his annual presents abounded. Nobody who takes a 
second look at any of these can feel them in a very jocular 
sense. If at all considered, ihey cease to be pleasurable. In 
the very first article of his " Magazine" recently published, 
there is a morbid energy of desolation and misery for the love 
of those things, and there is no story to relieve the feelings. 
A ghost or goblin of any kind would have been a real com- 
fort. " The Haunted House " is a wonderful production 
for its prolonged inspiration of wretchedness and squalid cata- 
logue of ruin. Such are Hood's latent characteristics, at 
all events ; but the more obvious features are those of hu- 
mour, and a most ingenious eccentricity. His fancies often 
bear an appearance of being studied, and seem to have 
arisen from the mind of a thoughtful humorist. Still, they 
are unaffected, and like himself The fertility of his wit 
has chiefly been displayed in the application of his most er- 
ratic fancies to the current topics of the day, its men and 
manners, its sayings and doings, its ignorances and illiber- 
alities. Mr. Hood is almost exclusively known as a comic 
writer, and his " Plea of the Midsummer Fairies" is little 
read in comparison ; nevertheless, his songs and lyrical 
compositions have much sweetness, refinement, and tender 
melancholy. His prose and his verse equally illustrate his 



THE LATE THEODORi; HOOK. 223 

tendency to serious and pathetic writing. Thoutrli tlie 
touches of sadness are generally brief, and at unexpected 
seasons, Mr. Hood has still shown himself capable of writ- 
ing a long narrative of serious interest and sustained pur- 
pose — carried on clear through the very thick of the cross- 
fire of puns, jokes, and extravaganzas — and convinced us that 
had he pleased (or had he possessed less versatility) he would 
have taken a permanent position among the highest class 
of English novelists, — if his " Tylney Hall " does not al- 
ready entitle him to this rank. It will be recognized as a 
work of genius, when hundreds of novels which have been 
popular since its publication, have lined trunks, and the 
trunks have been burnt for firewood. 

Theodore Hook possessed both wit and humour, and 
told a story well. He had great graphic powers in the ridic- 
ulous, and a surprising readiness of invention, or novel ap- 
plication. But his wit was generally malicious and his hii- 
mour satirical. If he made a sharp hit at an individual pe- 
culiarity, the point generally went through into human na- 
ture. You could not help laughing, but were generally 
ashamed of yourself for having laughed. The objects of 
his satire were seldom the vices or follies of mankind ; but 
generally their misfortunes, or manners, or unavoidable dis- 
advantages, whether of a physical or intellectual kind. A 
poor man with his mutton bone, was a rich meal for his 
comic muse ; and he was convulsed at the absurdity of high 
principles in rags, or at all needy. He never made fun of a 
lord. He would as soon have taken the King of Terror.? 
pickaback, as made fun of a lord. He was at the head of 
that unfortunately large class, who think that a brilliant sally 
of wit, or fancy, at any cost of tr th or feeling, is not only 
the best thing in society, but the best proof of sterling gen- 
ius; and that one of the finest tests of a dashing fellow of 
spirit is to steal clotlies, i. c. not pay a tailor's bill ; — nor 
any other bill that can be helped, it might be added. Mr. 
Hood was a wit about town, and a philosopher while recov- 
ering from " the effects of last night." His writings tended 
to give an unfavourable view of human nature, to make one 
suspicious and scornful. On the whole, though you had 
been amused and interested as you went on, you were left 
uncomfortable, and wisiied you could forget what you had 
read. 



224 THOMAS HOOD AND 

Both these writers possess very great mastery of comic 
expression, and characteristic felicity of versification and of 
rhyming. In addition to this, there was a novel feature 
introduced by Hood in his annuals, which often had an ex- 
tremely ludicrous effect — viz. that of drawings in illustra- 
tion, made by one who had " the idea," but no knowledge 
or ability in drawing. Since Hood really could draw, his 
performances in this way must be regarded as all the more 
ingenious. The most extraordinary attitudes and inten- 
tions, and the most difficult foreshortenings, were boldly at- 
tempted after the fashion of a child on a slate, but with a 
determined, unmisgiving, mind's eye, and apparently the 
most self-complaisant result. They were often quite irre- 
sistible. It is not, at the same time, to be denied that tliey 
continually gave you a very uncomfortable sensation. 

We could not, perhaps, convey a much better notion of 
Mr. Hook's style of writing, and of his actual habits of life, 
than in the following quotation from the Second Series of 
"Sayings and Doings :" — 

" What's the hour?" said George. 

" Past six," answered his iVieiid ; " bo go : sleep off your sorrow, and I and Wil- 
son will sSttle the order ot the day." 

" By the way," said George, " We have something particular for to-day." 

" Particular !" answered Dyson; "indeed have we — there's the Fives Court at 
one — at four the dear Countess — 'gad how she did eat, this last past night of her 
joyous life." 

" And drink too,'" interrupted George. 

" She never refuses Roman punch," observed Dyson ; " I never saw a freer crea- 
ture in that line in my life : to be sure she is dreadfully under-rated ; her cousin they 
eay is a tallowchandler ; and, upon my life, I never sit near her but I fancy I smell 
the niou Ids." 

" Hang the moulds !" said George : " she is good-natured, and I like her. 

" The good nature arises from her good set of teetli," said Dyson : " If ever you 
want laughers, George, to make up a party, study the i\ory. Be sure your guests 
have good teeth and they'll laugh at the worst story of a dinner-going wit, rather than 
not show the ' white and even.' Never mind ; at four we go to the Countess, at six 
we try a new oft-leader, at seven I have a short call to make in the New Road, and 
at eight we all dine here. After (Aat trust to chance : by the way, George, before you 
go to bed, I'll trouble you to lend me a couple of hundred pounds." 

"To be sure," said George, turning to his prime minister, who was waiting, 
" Wilson, let Mr. Dyson have what he wants." 

" Sir!" exclaimed Wilson. 

" Don't scold me, Mr. AVilson," said his master : " my friend Dyson must not he 
refused ; so good night, most worthy Arthur." Saying which the master of the house 
retired to rest, escorted by his body-servant. Monsieur Duval. 

" Now Wilson, said Mr. Dyson, " the money if you please, at your earliest con- 
venience." 

" Money, .Sir.""' said W^ilson. 

" Yes, money, Mr. Wilson," repeated the young worthy ; " why, you stare as if I 
asked you to pay the national debt ; I only want you to give me two hundreds of 
pounds." 

" I could do the one as easily as the other," answered the man. 

" Why, you keep your master's purse, Mr. Wilson .'"' 

T/ic Man of J\Iany FrUiids. 



THE LATE THEODORE HOOK. 225 

So much for the knowledge and experience of fashion- 
able life, its follies, extravagancies, and " principles " of con- 
duct. Let us turn to something more kindly from the 
pages of Hood. We can hardly do better than turn to the 
First Series of " Whims and Oddities," and the first thing 
that meets our eye is " Moral Reflections on the Cross of 
St. Paul's :"— 

" And what is life .' and all its ages — 

There's seven stages ! 
Turnham Green ! Chelsea ! Putney ! Fulham ! 
Brentford I and Kew ! 
And Tooting, too ! 
And oh ! what very little nags to pull 'em. i 

Yet each would seem a horse indeed. 
If here at Paul's tip-top we'd got 'em ; 

Although, like Cinderella's breed. 
They're mice at bottom. 

Then let me not despise a horse, 
Though he looks small from Paul's high cross ! 
Since he would be, — as near the sky, 
— Fourteen hands high. 

" What is this world with London in its lap .' 

Mogg's Map. 
The Thames, that ebbs and flows in its broad channel? 

A tidy kennel. 
The bridges stretching from its banks .' 

Stone planks. 
Oh me ! hence could I read an admonition 

To mad Aml)ition ! 
But that he would not listen to my call. 
Though I should stand upon the cross, and ball!''' 

Mr. Hood's sympathies are with humanity ; they are not 
often genial, because of a certain grotesque sadness that 
pervades Miem, but they are always kindly. He is liberal- 
minded, and of an independent spirit. His inner life is clear- 
ly displayed by his various writings. Mr. Hook had no 
sympathies with humanity for its own sake, but only as de^ 
veloped and modified by aristocratic circumstances and 
fashionable tastes. He was devoted to splendid externals. 
He may be said to have had no inner life — except that the 
lofty image of a powdered footman, with golden aiguillettes 
and large white calves, walked with a great air up and 
down the silent avenues of his soul. But the life of animal 
spirits, Hook possessed in an eminent degree. They ap- 
peared inexhaustible, and being applied as a sort of" steam" 
or laughing gas to set in motion his invention and all its 
fancies, and his surprising faculty of extemporaneous song- 
making, it is no wonder that his company was so much in 
request, and that he was regarded as such a delightful time- 

11 



226 THOMAS HOOD, ETC. 

killer and incentive to wine by the "high bloods of the up 
per circles." He made them laugh at good things, and for 
get themselves. He also made them drink. Thus are 
red herrings and anchovies used. Sad vision of a man of 
genius, as Hook certainly was, assiduously pickling his pre- 
rogative, and selling his birth-right for the hard and thank- 
less servitude of pleasing idle hours and pampered vanities 
The expenses, the debts, the secret drudgery, the splitting 
head-aches and heart's missery he incurred, in order to 
maintain his false position in these circles, are well known ; 
and furnish one more warning to men of genius and wit, of 
how dearly, how ruinously they have to ]jay for an invita- 
tion to a great dinner, and a smile from his Grace. The 
man of moderate means who usually dines at home, saves 
money besides his independence; but the man who is 
always " dining out," let him look to his pocket, as well as 
his soul. 

Mr. Hood, in private, offers a marked contrast to all 
that has been said of Theodore Hook. In nothing, perhaps, 
more than in this — that Hook was " audible, and full of 
vent," and Hood is habitually retiring and silent. Mr. Hood 
was originally intended for an engraver; but abandoned the 
profession, probably because a " graver" could not be found. 

Mr. Hook displayed a dashing physique; Mr. Hood 
rather resembles a gentlemen of a serious turn of mind, who 
is out of health. Within this unpromising outside and mel- 
ancholic atmosphere, lie hidden, and on the watch, — a ge- 
nius of quaint humour, a heart of strong emotions, and a 
spirit of kindliness towards all the world. 




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Lill^.of MeVel-m 8c CMi,3ei-s , 111 Ivliissau ?.iX^X. 



HARRIET MARTINEAU 

AND 

MRS. JAMESON. 



" Therefore she walks through the great city, veiled 
In virtue's adamantine eloquence, 
'Gainst scorn, and death, and pain, thus trebly mailed. 

And blending in the smiles of that defence. 
The serpent and the dove — Wisdom and Innocence." 

Revolt of UliM. 
" A thousand winged Intelligences daily 

Shall be thy ministers. 

Thou shalt conmiand ail Arts, 

As handmaids." 

MiCROCOSMUS. 

" I meant the day-star should not brighter rise. 

Nor lend like influence from its lucent seat; 
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet. 

Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride : 
I meant eacli softest virtue there should meet, 

Fit in that softer bosom to reside : 
Only a learned and a manly soul 

I purposed her ; th.it should, with even powers, 
ihe rock, the spindle, and the shears controul 

Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours." 

Ben JoNsopt. 

Harkiet MartiiN'eau, in whose powers of keen observa- 
tion, clear thought, patient study, and untiring energy, guid- 
ed always by singleness of purpose in the pursuit of truth, 
we should naturally have found promise of a long career of 
constantly progressive intellectual labour, has been with- 
drawn by disabling illness from the active course which 
from her youth she had worthily pursued. Had it been 
otherwise, a review of the character of her mind and writ- 
ings must have been conducted as only an examination of 
one portion of their manifestations, and must have been pro- 
phetic as well as retrospective. As it is, it must bear some- 
thing of the impress of finality. Yet, it will not be worthy 



228 HARRIET MARTINEAU AND 

of its subject if on that account it is tinged with regret or 
complaint. In her consistent and well-ordered mind, no- 
thing akin to such a feeling has found a place. We did 
not require to be told that she has endured the ordeal, pe- 
culiarly hard to one of her active habits, with cheerfulness, 
courage, and faith in the "soul of goodness in things evil." 
The lew works she has published since her illness have 
been addressed to the young, and written in a tone of entire 
sympathy with their buoyant life. This shows a singular 
freshness of spirit maintained throughout the languor and 
suffering of the bodily frame. The moral influence emanat- 
ing from her sick room, and hitherto exerted over the cir- 
cle of her friends, has, by her volume of essays just publish- 
ed, extended itself more widely. Of this beautiful volume 
we shall speak in its place. It is a pathetic illustration of 
the way in which 

" They also serve who only stand and wait." 

Harriet Martineau was born in the year 18C2, one of the 
youngest among a family of eight children. Her father was 
a proprietor of one of the manufactories in Norwich, in 
which place his family, originally of French origin, had re- 
sided since the revocation of the edict of Nantes. She has 
herself ascribed her taste for literary pursuits to the extreme 
delicacy of her health in cliilhood ; to the infirmity (deaf- 
ness) with which, she has been afflicted ever since, which 
without being so complete as to deprive her absolutely of 
all intercourse with the world, yet obliged her to seek occu- 
pations and pleasures within herself; and to the affecticn 
which subsisted between her and the brother nearest her 
own age, the Rev. James Martineau, whose fine mind and 
talents are well known. The occupation of writing, first 
begun to gratify her own tastes and inclination, became 
afterwards to her a source of honourable independence, 
when by one of the disasters so common in trade, her fami- 
ly became involved in misfortunes. She was then enabled 
to reverse the common lot of unmarried daughters in such 
circumstances, and cease to be in any respects a burthen. 
She realized an income sufficient for her simple habits, but 
still so small as to enhance the integrity of the sacrifice 
which she made to principle in refusing the pension cftered 
to her by Government in 1840. Her motive for refusing it 



MRS. JAMESON. 229 

was, that she considered herself in the light of a political 
writer, and that the offer did not proceed from the people, 
but from the Government which did not represent the peo- 
ple. 

The list of works published by Harriet Martineau is 
sufficient of itself to prove her great industry and persever- 
ance in a course once begun. It will be seen that she pub- 
lished early in life, and that the series of her works proceeds 
with scarcely a break, year by year, onward to the period 
of her illness. Full as it is, it does not comprehend her numer- 
ous contributions to periodical literature, some of which are 
among the most valuable of her compositions. The list is 
as follows : — 

1823. — '■' Devotional Exercises, for the use of Young Persons." 

1824 cSc 5. — " Christmas Day, or the Friends," a tule. " The Friends," — Second 
Part. 

1826.—" Principle and Practice," a tale. " The Rioters." "Addresses, Prayers, 
and Original Hymns." 

1827.—" Mary Campbell," a tale " Tlie Turn Out," a tale. 

1829. — " Sequel to Principle and Practice," a tale. Tracts for Houlston. " My 
Servant Rachel," a tale. 

1830. — "Traditions of Palestine." "The Essential Faith of the Universal 
Church," (Prize Essay.) "Five Years of Youth," a tale. 

1831. — " The Faith as unfolded by many Prophets," (Prize Essay.) " Providence 
as manifested through Israel." (Prize Essay.) 

1832, 3& 4. — " Illustrations of Political Economy," " Illustrations of Taxation,' 
tales. " Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated " tales. 

In this interval Miss Martineau went to America. 

18,37. — " Society in America." 

1838. — " Retrospect of Western Travel." " Letter to the Deaf." " How to oh- 
ierve Morals and Manners." " The Maid of All Work," (Guide to Service.) " The 
Lady's Maid." 

1839. — " Deerbrook," a novel. " The Housemaid," (Guide to service.) 

1840.—" The Dressmaker," with technical aid, (Guide to Trade.) " The Hour 
and the Man," a Romance. 

1841.—" The Playfellows," 4 vols. viz. ;— " The Settlers at Home " " The 
Peasant and the Prince." " Feats on the Fiord " " The Crofton Boys." 

From these works, the authoress would doubtless, like 
all those who have published early in life, gladly expunge 
some of the earliest. Yet there is not one among them 
which is out of keeping with the rest. All are written 
with a moral aim, in some higher, in others lower, but al- 
ways apparent; all are remarkable for a free, clear, and un- 
affected style, which in her later productions is admirable 
from its lucid distinctness and simple force ; and the whole 
taken together evince a continual improvability and pro- 
gression, an undoubted sign of the possession on the part of 
the writer, of a mind open to and earnest for truth. 

The year 1830 marks an epoch in the mind we are study- 



230 HARRIET MARTINEAU AND 

incp-. the works from that period assume a higher tone, and 
have in general a higher aim. The " Traditions of Pales- 
tine" was a beautiful conception, executed in a spirit of 
love and poetry which throws a charm over its pages. The 
period in which Jesus Christ fulfilled his mission on earth, 
the people among whom he dwelt, the scenes in which he , 
moved, the emotions he awakened, the thoughts he kindled, 
all are portrayed in a series of descriptions ; while He him- 
self (with that true art which has in this instance been in- 
stilled by reverence) is never introduced in person. This 
little book must kindle pure and holy thoughts wherever it 
is re^d. 

The three Prize Essays published in this and the follow- 
ing year by the Association of Unitarian Dissenters, to 
which Miss Martineau belongs, display some of the chief 
powers of her mind. At this period she began her contri- 
butions to the " Monthly Repository ;" these were sometimes 
original essays, tales, or poetry ; sometimes reviews of meta- 
physical or theological works. Among the most excellent 
we may notice the " Essays on the Art of Thinking," on 
he "Religion of Socrates," and "True Worshippers;" 
but above all, the poem for the month of August, in a series 
by different authors, entitled " Songs of the Months." 

All these literary labours were coincident with the design 
which was afterwards accomplished in the " Illustrations of 
Political Economy." She has herself ascribed the original 
idea of this successful work to the reading of Mrs. Marcet's 
" Conversations on Political Economy," which made her 
perceive that in her own tales entitled the "Rioters" and 
"The Turn-Out," she had written political economy as M, 
Jourdain spoke prose, without knowing it. The question 
which thence presented itself, as to why all the doctrines of 
the science should not be equally well illustrated by fiction, 
was followed by a resolution to risk the publication of her 
Tales. The plan had been rejected by the Society for the 
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. They could not see that 
any practical knowledge or truth was to be conveyed through 
the medium of fiction, which they regarded in all its forms 
as light reading, in direct opposition to weighty facts. The 
leading publishers, probably had a similar impression ; and 
would not accept the work. At length one was found who 
undertook the enterprise, and at the end of a month com- 



MRS. JAMESON. 231 

plete success was certain. The books were in every body's 
hands; the new number was watched for at the beginning 
of every month; edition was called for after edition; trans- 
lations into French and German were made; the reputation 
of Harriet Martineau as an able writer, was established. 

This is not the place for an examination of the doctrines 
of political economy; nor would any such task be incum- 
bent, even in a lengthened analysis of Miss Martineau's 
work. The task which she proposed to herself was to illus- 
trate such parts of the fundamental doctrines of the science 
as lead to important practical results, adopting the doctrines 
as taught by the highest contemporary authorities. No one 
will deny the clearness and completeness of her illustration. 
Her correct interpretation of her authorities is questioned 
only on one point by a high authority, Mr. John Mill, in his 
review of her series. That point is her " unqualified con- 
demnation of the principle o^ the poor-laws." " In this," 
says the reviewer, " she is decidedly behind the present 
state of the science." What this principle has effected in 
the working, is another matter. We should, however, con- 
ce've on the evidence of passages in her work on " Amer- 
ica," relating to the competitive system and its necessary 
results, that she has subsequently abandoned her former 
views on this subject. 

The stories, by means of which she illustrates her main 
points are generally constructed admirably, and testify to a 
great power of invention. It was no slight undertaking to 
contrive an interesting plot bearing on twenty-four doctrines 
of political economy; six more on taxation; and four more 
on poor-laws and paupers ! But the majority of these stories 
really are interesting on their own account; some of ihem 
deeply so. We need only instance "Ireland" as perhaps 
the finest of all, and add that it was worthily companioned. 

The choice of such a class of subjects gave rise to all 
manner of imputations. The "Quarterly Review," in 
especial, while enlarging on what did not appear to it as 
" feminine," certainly forgot what was gentlemanly. To 
most dispassionate inquirers, the choice will appear simply 
an evidence of the possession of a mind keenly alive to per- 
ceptions of all outward things ; actively benevolent ; obser- 
vant of passing events, and the wants and evils of the age ; 
turning its attention, therefore, tostudiesbearing on thoseevils 



232 HARRIET MARTINEAU, AND 

and their remedies ; logical rather than creative ; hopeful of 
good, therefore too ready at times to adopt a theory bearing 
a promise of good ; and, having embraced it, clear and acute 
in working it out. Too unshackled in spirit, too unaffected 
and simple-minded to be deterred for a moment from put- 
ting forth to the world that which she had conceived of truth 
and wisdom, by any consideration of what this or the other 
organ might decide on the subject of feminine occupations; 
but that which she found to do, " doing it with her might." 
The work on " America," written after the tour which 
Miss Martineau made in that country, is very valuable, as 
containing an admirably written description by an accurate 
observer, with a most candid mind and a thirst after the 
truth. At that period she was possessed of perfect health, 
and the good spirits natural to her were enhanced by suc- 
cess. The book breathes of cheerfulness and hopefulness. 
She evidently enjoyed her residence among the Americans, 
and she has dwelt on their fine institutions, their grand 
country, their many advantages, as on a favourite theme. 
Their lighter faults she has touched lightly; their graver 
errors with a melancholy earnestness. "Their civilization 
and morals," she says, " fall far below their own principle." 
This is enough to say. It is better than contrasting them 
with " European morals and civilization." This is un- 
doubtedly the only philosophical view of the matter ; and it 
is wiser to have faith like Harriet Martineau that the ideal 
standard set before them will elevate them to itself in time, 
than to reproach them with the discrepancy. It is no won- 
der that the subject is puzzling to us, who have outgrown 
our Institutions, and are obliged to maintain a continual 
struggle to bring them into something like harmony with 
our morals and civilization. Her chapters on slavery and 
its aspects have a solemnity of reprobation. On the other 
hand, the following passage contains a view of this subject 
which other nations are too apt to forget, and is a good in- 
stance of that clearsightedness and candour which are so 
characteristic of the writer : — 

" The nation must not be judged of by that portion whose worldly interests are 
involved in the maintenance of the anomaly ; nor yet by the eight hundred flourishing 
abolition societies of the north, with all the supporters they have in unassociated in- 
dividuals. The nation must he judged of as to Slavery by neither of tliose parties ; 
but by the aspect of the conflict between them. If it be found that the five aliolition- 
ists who first met in a little chamber five years ago, to measure their moral strength 
against this national enormity, have become a host beneath whose assaults the vicious 



MRS. JAMESON. 233 

instituliori is rocking to its foundations, it is time tliat slavery was ceasin- to be a 
national reproach. Europe now owes to America the justice of regarding hir as tho 
country of abolitionism, quite as emphatically as the country of slavery." 

Suciety in America, v. 3. p. 249. 

This work is as remarkable for its fearless outspoken 
tone as for its cheerful, hopeful, and candid views of things. 
Among other subjects on which the opinions of the writ'er 
are freely stated, is that of the condition of M'omen. Miss 
Martineau accuses the American Constitution of incon- 
sistency in withholding from women political and social 
equality with men. She points out that while it ] roclaims 
in theory, the equal rights of all the human race (except the 
blacks) it excludes one-half of the human race from any po- 
litical rights whatever; neither providing for their indepen- 
dence as holders of property, nor as controllers of legisla- 
tion, although their interests are equally concerned in°both 
with those of men. 

A similarity of opinion on this question is to be found in 
the^ writings of Mrs. Jameson. Her delightful work, the 
" Characteristics of Women," may be said to have derived 
its origin from her strong feelings concerning the imperfect 
institutions of society with regard to her own sex : and in her 
" Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada," she 
has explicitly and in eloquent terms stated her dissatisfaction, 
though she has rather called upon legislators to provide a 
remedy than pointed one out herself, except in her advocacy 
of a more enlarged and more enlightened system of educa- 
tion. 

It is evident that these two fine-minded women have been 
led to the same opinions by totally different circumstances, 
and hence they hold them " with a difference." The calm 
temperament, clear intellect, and active energy of Harriet 
Martineau, insured to herself a moral independence ; the 
intellectual society in which she moved encouraged it, and 
her logical head set her to the investigation of ''the causes 
which debarred the generality of women from the enjoyment 
of the healthy and cheerful lone of the inner life of which 
she was conscious herself In her writings, therefore, we 
find no complaints ; simply a recognition of existing evils, 
and an indication of their remedies. With Mrs. Jameson it 
is different. She sees more difficulties in the case. She 
knows by experience more of the complications, and is con- 
scious of the mysterious links and sympathies by which the 

11* 



234 HARRIET MARTINEAU, AND 

chains have been wound around thai half of the human race 
to which she belongs. Her feelings have been awakened to 
the subject by experience of suflering; and looking round 
her, and seeing how widely spread such suffering is, she 
points to the master passion whence she feels it springs, and 
to the evil at the root of the tree of life, with a cry for help 
which often sounds like a wail of despair : — 

" Strange, and passing strange," she says, " that the relation between the two 
sexes, the passion of love in short, should not be taken into deeper consideration by 
our teachers and our legisl.iturs. People educate and legislate as if" there was no such 
thing in the world ; but ask the priest, ask Iho physician — let them reveal the amount 
of moral and physical results from this one cause. * " Must love be ever treated 
with profaneness, as a mere illusion ? or with coarseness, as a mere impulse .' or with 
fear, as a mere disease.' or with shame, as n meie weakness.' or with levity, as a 
mere accident.' Whereas, it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the 
foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness, — mysterious, universal, in- 
evitable as death. Why then should love be treated less seriously than death .' It is 
as serious a thing. ****** Death must come and love must come — but 
the state in which they find us .' — whether blinded, astonished, and frightened, and 
ignorant, or, like reasonable creatures, guarded, prepared, and fit to manage our 
own feelings.' — this, I suppose, depends on ourselves; and for want of such self- 
management and self-knowledge, look at the evils that ensue ! — hasty, improvident, 
unsuitable marriages ; repining, diseased, or vicious celibacy ; irretrievable infamy ; 
cureless insanity; — tlio death that comes early, and the love that comes late, reverse 
ing the primal laws of our nature." 

Mrs. Jameson is well aware of the odium likely to fall 
upon any meddler with this subject, and thus humorously 
describes the danger she runs upon : — 

" It is like putting one's hand into the fire, only to touch upon it ; it is the 
universal bruise, the putrifying sore, on which you must not lay a finger, or your 
patient (that is, society) cries out and resists ; and, like a sick baby, scratches 
and kicks its physician." 

Mr:-,: Jameson's " Canada," vol. 3. pp. 12, 13. 

Mrs. Jameson is an established favourite with the public. 
She is an accomplished woman, an elegant writer, and her 
refined taste and quick sensibility are good influences on her 
age. Her " Characteristics of Women " contain a searching 
analysis of character ar.d fine criticism, such as ought to | 
place her name among those of the greatest of the commen- > 
tators of Shakspeare. Her exposition of the character of i 
Cordelia is, in especial, beautifully true ; and her perception 
of the intensity, and strength, and real dignity of soul in 
Helena, (in " All's Well that Ends Well,") notwithstanding 
that the tenour of all the incidents and circumstances around 
her wound and shock, manifests the true power to look be- 
yond the outward shows of things and read the heart. The 
"Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad" is a delightful 
book ; accomplishing that rare task of rendering descriptions 



MRS. JAMESON. 235 

of works of art pleasant reading instead of dull catalogues. 
The authoress has also published the " Lives of Celebrated 
Female Sovereigns;''' and " Explanatory Notes to the Series 
of Outlines by Retzch," called " Retzch's Fancies." The 
" Diary of an Ennuyee " has gone through more editions 
than any of her works. It is not only a delightful book of 
travels, but the vivid picture of an individual mind — a per- 
sonal narrative, which is always exciting and interesting. 
But self-consciousness, the bane of all real emotion, is im- 
plied in the possibility of recording emotion; and feeling is 
apt " to die, if it but look upon itself." Hence, we regard 
those who enrich the world's experience by the disclosure of 
their own souls, to be themselves the sacrifice ; for both joy 
and sorrow are blunted by their own record. 

The " Deerbrook " of Harriet Martineau has not enhanc- 
ed the reputation of its authoress. The conception involves 
a moral puzzle, which is always painful. Neither does the 
catastrophe solve the puzzle. As the hero is made to sacri- 
fice love to a supposed and mistaken vievv of duty, thus tam- 
pering with a great reality for the sake of a shadow, the plot 
ought to end in a tragedy, instead of in peace after a struggle. 
" The Hour and the Man," is a story of deep interest ; but 
fiction has done little for it. In the form of an authentic me- 
moir of its grand subject, the life and death of" Toussaint 
L'Ouverture," its effect would have been more powerful. 
Much finer than either of these works of fiction are the tales 
comprising the series called the " Playfellow," published 
withui the last two years. These tales, constructed simply, 
to suit the minds for which they are intended, and founded 
on the emotions and actions of children, breathe a spirit of 
noble fortitude, endurance, energy, and self-control, which 
make them healthy reading for old and young. If they have 
a fault it is that they are rather wanting in love as an influ- 
en,".e, resting more on the te 'chings of suffering. Amonor 
them all " The Crofton Boys '"■our especial favourite. In 
all these works there is evinced very great power of de- 
scription, and frequently a quiet humour. Harriet Martineau 
is never personal or satirical. " Life in the Sick Room " is 
published without a name; but that she is the authoress 
caimot be doubted for a moment by anyone who has studied 
her writings, and far less by any one who has ever held com- 
panionship with herself; for it breathes of herself in every 



236 HARRIET MARTINEAU, AND 

thought and word, chastened, purified, and instructed by 
suffering, and with eyes firmly fixed on the countenance of 
the Angel of Death, which is to her not terrible, but calm, 
in pale and solemn beauty. It would also appear, though no 
name is mentioned, that the friend to whom she dedicates 
the volume is Elizabeth B. Barrett, the elegant poetess and 
accomplished scholar, who, like herself, long immured within 
the four walls of her chamber, yet possesses sympathies alive 
to beauty and all fine influences, and a spirit expanding 
into and aspiring towards infinity. The holy teachings of 
this book are more touching in their wisdom than would be 
the words of one who came to us " from the dead ;" for here 
the bourne is not passed ; the words come indeed from one 
who has become accustomed to her " footing on the shaking 
plank over the deep dark river," but who is not too far re- 
moved from our sympathies, and has not yet laid aside the 
conditions of our common nature. 

Both these fine writers have, as we have seen, advocated 
a re-modelling of our institutions with regard to their own 
sex. The one represents the intellect of the question, the 
other the feeling; one brings it to an acute abstract compre- 
hension, the other all the sympathies of a woman ; one rea- 
sons from observation, the other from experience ; one has 
been roused to the cause by general benevolence, the other, 
probably, by personal suffering. Harriet Martineau has de- 
voted her powers chiefly to science, moral or political. She 
has generally written with some fixed aim, some doctrine to 
illustrate, some object to accomplish. Mrs. Jameson, on the 
other hand, has pursued the study of art. She is a fine critic, 
and possesses a subtle insight into character. We may ex- 
pect many more works from her. To the course of Harriet 
Martineau we must look as to one nearly closed ; but close 
when it may, she has done enough to prove her possession of 
a mind endowed with the capability of great usefulness, 
which she has nobly applied to high purposes. She has 
shown the power of grasping a principle; of evolving from 
it all its legitimate consequences, and of so clearly arranging 
them as to present truth to the understiuiding and to the 
heart also by its consistency and harmony. Her genius is 
not creative ; but her works of fiction exhibit a rare faculty 
of conception, and the power of combining the materials 
collected by her accurate observation and clear thought, so 



MRS. JAMESON. 237 

as lo produce a charm and an interest. She is poetical, 
though not a poet. One composition, however, to which we 
have already referred, might, by itself, give her a claim to the 
title; but, perhaps, there is no fine mind which has not in 
its time produced its one poem. We conclude with that 
poem, and we feel that, in reference to her, we so conclude 
appropriately : — 

" SONG FOR AUGUST. 

" Beneath this starry arch, 
Nought resteth or is still ; 
But all things hold their mar(Ji 
As if by one great will. 
Moves one, move all; 
Hark to the foot-fall '. 
On, on, for ever. 

" Yon sheaves were once but seed ; 
Will ripens into deed ; 
As cave-drops swell the streams, 
Day thoughts feed nightly dreams ; 
And sorrow tracketh wrong, 
As echo follows song. 

On, on, for ever. 

" By night, like stars on high, 
The hours reveal their train ; 
They wliisper and go by ; 
I never watch in vain. 

Moves one, move all ; 

Hark to the foot-fall 1 

On, on, for ever. 

" They pass the cradle head. 
And there a promise shed ; 
They pass the moist new grave. 
And bid rank verdure wave ; 
They bear through every clime. 
The harvests c*"all time. 

On, on, for ever." 



SHERIDAN KNOWLES 

AND 

WILLIAM MACREADY. 



" Too popular is Tragic Poesy, 

Stvaining liis tip-toes for a farthing fee, 

Painters and Poets hold your ancient right I 

Write what you will, and write not what you might. 

Tlieir limits bo tlieir list — their reason, irill!" 

Bishop Hall's Satires. 

The Drama should be the concentrated spirit of the 
age. The Stage should be the mirror over which every 
varying emotion of the period should pass. What is the 
Spirit of an Age as regards the Drama 1 Certainly the The- 
atrical Spirit is the most undramatic that can be. Stage- 
plays are not of necessity Dramas, and more truly dramatic 
elements may be found in the novelist's works than in the 
theatrical writer's. The Dramatic Spirit of our Age, of this 
very year, is to be found more living and real in the pages 
of Hood, Dickens, Mrs. Gore, and Mrs. Trollope, than in 
the play-house pieces. These writers gather for themselves 
the characteristics of existence as modified by the principles 
and taste of the age, and the latter draw from them, or from 
the large conventional storehouse of the hereditary drama 
their traditionary portraitures. 

In this portion of our su-bject, must we then examine the 
works of the novelists and other writers of fiction, rather 
than the stage writers? To be strictly logical, this should 
be the case ; but as our work is historical as well as critical, 
we must adhere to the popular and forsake the philosophical 
classification. 

The visible Drama is most eminently portrayed in the 
works of Sheridan Knowles, and the acting of William 



SHERIDAN KNOWLES, ETC. 239 

Macready. These two gentlemen, at all events, are the 
visible representers of it, and ninety-nine men out of every 
hundred allude to and think of them when discussing Dra- 
matic matters. This is reversing the rational state of the 
matter ; but being so, we must endeavour to accommodate 
ourselves to it. 

The only way in vvhich Mr. Knowles personifies our age, 
is in his truly domestic feeling. The age is domestic, and 
so is he. Comfort — not passionate imaginings, — is the aim 
of every body, and he seeks to aid and gratify this love of 
comfort. All his dramas are domestic, and strange to say, 
those that should be most classic, or most chivalric, most 
above and beyond it, are the most imbued with this spirit. — 
In what consists the interest and force of his popular play of 
'* Virginius?" The domestic feeling. The costume, the 
setting, the decorations, are heroic. We have Roman tunics, 
but a modern English heart, — the scene is the Forum, but 
the sentiments those of the " Bedford Arms." The affec- 
tion of the father for his daughter — the pride of the daugh- 
ter in her father, aie the main principles of the play, and the 
pit and galleries and even much of the boxes are only per- 
plexed with the lictors and the Decemviri, and the strange 
garments of the actors. These are a part of the show folks' 
endeavour to amuse. Is Caius Gracchus not heroic ? — are 
there not very long speeches about Liberty and Rome 1 — 
Undoubtedly : but still the whole care of Gracchus is for his 
family : and to the audience the interest is entirely domestic. 

It is the same in " William Tell ;" though liberty and 
heroism should be the prevailing subjects, the interest is 
entirely domestic. For the freedom of a country, for the 
punishment of a petty-minded tyrant, the auditor of this play 
but slenderly cares, — while for the security of Tell's family 
and the personal success of Tell, every one is anxious. — 
This feeling, in proportion as our author became popular, 
has only more visibly developed itself ; and his later produc- 
tions have manifested his prevailing quality more powerfully 
in the pure form of woman's characteristics. Julia, — the 
Wife — the Countess Eppenstein, are fine impersonations of 
the affections; elaborated and exfoliated into all the ramifi- 
cations of womanhood. Is this assertion of his ruling prin- 
ciple stated in a spirit of detraction ? By no means: but 
onlytoenableusto tracethecauseof Mr. Knowles'spopularity, 
as far as it extends, and to show the inevitable connection 



240 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

the writer's genius must have with the Spirit of the Age. — 
Mr. Knowles is at the head of the acted Dramatists of the 
age, assuredly not because he has more invention, more wit, 
more knowledge of human character, or more artistical skill, 
than many other living dramatic writers, but because his 
genius for domestic interests, added to his stage influence 
as an actor, has forced his talents into higher or fuller em- 
ployment than that of any of his compeers. He has delved 
into the human breast, and traced the secret windings of the 
affections. Limited, indeed, to the emotions elicited by 
modern social intercourse, but still with genuine truth and 
varied knowledge. For this he is greatest in dialogue scenes 
that gradually^and completely unfold a feeling. And, again, 
this tendency of his genius induces him to delight in deline- 
ating the characteristics of woman. 

He is entitled to respect inasmuch as he has risen instead 
of fiillen with public approbation. In " Virginius," " Caius 
Gracchus," "Tell," we see the play-wright predominant. 
Mr. Knowles, when composing these, was struggling for 
fame, perhaps for existence, and he was compelled to pass 
through the turnpikes that public taste had erected, and 
managers maintained. Consequently, we find all the formula 
of the received drama, — shows, battles, bustle, antiquated 
phraseology, vapid imitations of obsolete hinnours, and 
altogether a barbarous medley of the traditionary and com- 
mon-place tricks of the theatre, introduced, first to attract 
managers, and through them to charm the multitude. — 
Gradually, however, as he won his way from servitude to 
power he used his success manfully. In the "Hunchback," 
he emancipated himself greatly from the trammels of the 
play-wright, and in the character of "Julia" gave full 
license to his genius to develope his intuitions of female 
nature. The plot of this play is absurd, the construction 
clumsy, the attempt to delineate human character in many 
instances feeble — the language often grotesque ; but it took 
hold of the public, it elicited unanimous applause, because 
in the woman it spoke the language of nature to nature. — 
Herein he vindicated his high calling — herein he was the 
poet. Situation — sentiment — circumstance — show — proces- 
sions — groupings — were abandoned, and human emotion 
finely expressed, won and subdued all hearts, — chastening, 
whilst interesting ; instructing, while it moved. 

As an artist in dramatic composition, Mr. Knowles must 



AND WILLIAM MACREADV. 241 

be ranked with the least skilful, particularly of late. The 
comparative failure of his last three or four productions is 
chiefly attributable to their inefficiency of construction, 
though they contain more beautiful poetry in detached 
fragments than can be found in any of his former works. 

So much space would not rightly have been given to re- 
marks on Mr. Knowles, but that he speaks the predomina- 
ting feeling of the age. Were we to estimate him by com- 
parison, or by analysis — by what has been, what is, and 
what may be, he would not hold a high rank — so great, so 
vast are the capacities of the Drama. Placed beside Shak- 
speare, and the powerful-minded men of Elizabeth's day, he 
dwindles, it is true;* but placed beside the Rowes, the 
Southerns, the Murphys — he is as a man to mouthing 
dwarfs. But, whatever he may be by comparison, he is 
truly a poet, and as such should be honoured. 

But the Drama has many phases ; and being so pecu- 
liarly an imitative art, how can it be otherwise? The most 
simple is that which reflects the tone and temperament 
of the age. This kind of Drama must not now be looked 
for amongst what is somewhat absurdly called the " legiti- 
mate." That phrase is foolishly applied to a form — the 
five-act form ; and to that kind of Drama which includes 
philosophical exposition of human character, and philosoph- 
ical and rhetorical dissertation upon it. But the most legiti- 
mate, because the genuine offspring of the age, is that 
Drama which catches the manners as they rise, and embodies 
the characteristics of the time. This, then, has forsaken 
the five-act form, and taken shelter at what have been 
named " Minor Theatres," and it will be found in the skil- 
ful little Comedies, and bright, racy Dramas of Jerrold, 
Planche, Bernard, Buckstone, Oxenford, Dance, Mark 
Lemon, Moncrieflf, Coyne, Leman Rede, Lunn, Peake, 
Poole, and others. Few of these clever writers have made 
any pretensions, in writing for the stage, beyond pecuniary 
and fair professional motives. Mr. Jerrold, Mr. Oxenford, 
Mr. Planche, and several more, have various other claims 
in literature ; but their position on the stage only is here 
treated. They have, each and all, (though in very different 
quantities,) lavished much wit, fancy, and invention on their 

* We should except the finer parts of his hest dialogues, in which he does not 
dwindle beside the Elizabethan men, but is worthy to stand among tlieni. — Ed. 



242 SHERID4N KNOWLES, 

productions, doomed by the theatrical destinies to an ephem- 
eral existence. Some of their pieces have lived their 
thirty, fifty, and even hundred nights, and then been heard 
of no more. These writers have borne the brunt of much 
truculent and bombastic criticism — they have been misera- 
bly remunerated — and often but ill appreciated, though 
much applauded. Whoever for the last twenty years has 
spent his evenings at the Olympic, the Adelphi, the Hay- 
market, the Strand, the Surrey, and even the Victoria The- 
atres, cannot but recall the innumerable dramas that have 
risen, like summer clouds, evening after evening, only to be 
absorbed into a night, endless in all cases, and frequently 
undeserved. How many sparkling sallies — how much gaiety 
— how many humorous characteristics — lightly and vividly 
shadowing forth our social existence, — and what skill 
in the distribution of the action and effects! Could all the 
laughs be collected and re-uttered in a continuous volley, 
the artillery of Waterloo would be a trifle to it; nor would 
the rain of that destructive day exceed the tears that have 
been shed at these shrines of the dramatic muses. Yet the 
authors are spoken of slightingly by the ponderous dispens- 
ers of fame; and treated by the managers, and even the de- 
lighted public, as something only a k\v degrees above street- 
minstrels. But herein is shadowed the fate of their mighty 
predecessors; and in the red-herring and rhenish banquet 
that killed Nash — in the tavern-brawling death of Marlowe 
— in the penury of Dekker — of Webster, who was a parish- 
clerk, — of Beaumont, and Fletcher, and the distresses of 
nearly every one of the dramatists, of their age, is to be 
found the symbol of the conduct which originality ever 
suffers, in the first instance. Deaths that might have resem- 
bled Otvvay's have no doubt been often within an ace of oc- 
curring among many of his fraternity. The present race 
are small of stature when measured with their noble pro- 
genitors — not because the present age is so much less im- 
aginative and impassioned, but because the public taste has 
been perverted, and cannot improve of itself, and because 
managers, without a single exception, persist in pandering 
to that perversion, viz., addressing gaudy and expensive 
shows to the external senses. The elder dramatists were 
scholars and immortal poets, writing to and for inquiring and 
earnest-minded men. The intellectual loants of that acre 



AND WILLIAM MACREADY. 243 

were large — their speculative faculties were fully developed — 
the grandest questions and the highest deeds occupied men, 
and the theme must be high and the development fine that 
satisfied them. B icon propounded the proposition of Nature 
and its causes — Raleigh and Sydney embodied the Chivalry 
— and a Faith, burning and sincere, sought to penetrate the 
deepest recesses of man's eternal destinies. It is not meant 
to be argued that in their own day, any of the great men of 
former times, who needed bread, were not as liable to be 
half-starved as they are now; nor to be intimated that any 
such greatness exists in our day ; but simply, that original 
greatness, besides all the old difficulties and neglects, has 
now a trading mass of hostile criticism against it, and that 
there is not the same enthusiasm to be half-starved as 
formerly. 

The poets who speak to an age must be equal to it, or 
they will not be heard ; if far beyond it they will not be lis- 
tened to, in so far as they are beyond it. The elder dra- 
matists, having a ready access to the stage, and a cordial 
welcome, wrote with a full nature because their audiences 
felt it, and were not weak and dainty. Checked at every 
turn, our modern acted dramatists have for the most part 
sought to effect little more than pastime for the hour. The 
difference is at least as much in the times and circumstances 
as the men. 

It is not to depreciate, but to estimate, that we compare. 
Whatever the amount of their ability, the truly dramatic, as 
far as it exists on the modern stage at ali, will be found in 
these comparatively neglected writers of the minor drama. 
This neglect may be traced to one special cause — they are 
not " literary." The literary men were opposed to them, 
and so strongly was this felt, that one of them said to another 
who has subsequently become one of the most popular essay- 
ists of the day, " So, you have left tis, and taken to litera- 
ture !" The Drama is so elastic as to embrace the highest 
poetry, philosophy, eloquence, wit, knowledge, and learning, 
as exemplified by him who was great in each and all. It 
can, however, exist without any of these qualities, and 
reaches in a graphic vista from "Punch" to yEschylus. — 
Our modern play-wrights (as they are nick-named) have 
sought only to please, and cared not to exercise more labour 
than was absolutely necessary for this end. Quickness — 



244 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

interest — invention — skill, were demanded and provided, 
and often wit, humour, fancy and pathos thrown into the 
bargain. 

In Jerrold's forty dramas who does not recognize an in- 
finity of brilliant repartee — of fine sense and feeling ? What 
a readiness in the dialogue! — what variety of characteris- ' 
tics ! So much that, if carefully woven into no greater num- 
ber of plays than Congreve wrote, would have provided a far 
more lasting and deserved reputation than that licentious 
classic has obtained. " Doves in a Cage," the " Wedding 
Gown," " Nell Gwyn," the "Prisoner of War," and the re- 
mainder of the long list, how abounding are they with spark- 
ling glances and pungent satire on the humours, follies, and 
absurdities of existing life! 

Mr. Buckstone is nearly as prolific as Thomas Hey wood, 
and almost all his pieces have been successful, and deserv- 
edly so; that is, they have made hundreds and thousands 
laugh and cry, and speeded the hours of innumerable audi- 
ences. Quantity may not betoken quality, nor success mer- 
it, but still there must be, and there is, much of the latter in 
Buckstone. He is a translator, a hunter up of old stories, 
a retailer of old jokes, an adapter and stage artisan, say 
many. So he is; but still he does all these things with tal- 
ent — he excellently adapts rather than translates — and gives 
new life to an old joke by giving it congenial characteristics. 
His hand is hard, and his colouring coarse; but still he has 
a quick eye for social absurdities, knows the pulse of an au- 
dience, to th(; finest division ; is admirable in construction, 
and effect, and possesses that very uncommon gift in an Eng- 
lishman — a ceaseless flow of animal spirits, which is per- 
haps the main source of all his successes. 

Mr. Bernard, in his earlier career, dealt more in the sen- 
timental ; and very delicate and high-toned were some of his 
dramas. They touched the chord of domestic feeling, and 
rung a sharp and full vibration from it. " A Man of Genius 
on his Last Legs " proved his rich sense of the absurd, as did 
many subsequent productions. He too is essentially of his 
age. 

Mr. Oxenford has mastered the art of construction, and 
can manufacture a piece for the stage as a cabinent-maker 
fashions an ingenious article. His idea of fun is great, and 
his fancy is governed by a highly cultivated and instructed 



AND WILLIAM MACUEADY. 245 

; judgment. Invention and humour are his, as is evident to 
every one who has seen " A Day Well Spent."* 

Mr. Planche, if only for the e.xtraordinarv number of 
dramas he has successfully produced, would deserve espe- 
cial notice. Original dramas, translations, farces, interludes, 
operas, Christmas pleasantries, &c. ; he has contributed up- 
wards of one hundred pieces to the stage, and with the ex- 
;ceptionof only three "damnations," they have all been suc- 
cessful ! Mr. Planche has a vivid notion of manners, and 
depicts character as exemplified and modified by them', ad- 
mirably. The fine lady of intrigue — the battered debauchee 
of rank— the man of pleasure — he delineates well. He has 
a strong feeling for, and admiration of the artificial elegan- 
cies of life— considerable fancy — a ready invention in char- 
|acter and situation, and great skill in new adaptations ; not 
much wit or repartee, but a genial and laughable humour, 
ind the rare art of throwing a refining atmosphere round 
even the most unpromising subjects. He has the most wary, 
\vatchful, logical head in the construction of a play, and 
could give instructions in this respect to some of the best 
;dramatists, very much to their advantage. 

But we must pass on, and without particularizing the 
individual characteristics of the pens of the many " ready 
writers" who have set in motion the various green-rooms. 
■ Dance — and Lcman Rede — have each made a path for 
themselves, nor can it be doubted but they possess in them- 
selves the ability to produce something very superior to that 
.vhich circumstance and the present condition of the stage 
•equires at their hands; and Moncrieflfonly wanted to have 
alien on a better age to have been ranked with some of the 
iramatists of a nobler era. 

But have all the play-makers and stage- feeders been 
jiamed? — Not a tenth part of them. Are all of the same 
^ibility ? — By no means. A catalogue as lengthy as that of 
Homer's ships might be made, though their freights would 
\p no means be so weighty. Shades of these shadows might 
l>e found; second, third, and fourth transmitters of a weak 
original ; combinations of the ferocious and the witty, and 
■fflitators and constructors so faint and poor that the art is 
jio longer concealed, and the mechanism is apparent to all 

. * Mr. Oxenford has also sterling claims in literature, were it only for liia un- 
jvalled translations from Calderen. — Ed. 



246 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

but the merest novices, or the most vapid imaginations. 
Surprises, rescues, and discoveries, perils, escapes, and dis- 
guises, so echoed and re-echoed that all effect is gone. Puns 
so obvious, allusions so dim, mistakes so absurd, disguises 
so thin, characteristics so exaggerated, equivokes so bald, 
that no reflecting mind could be entertained, or for a mo- 
ment be deluded, by them. To particularize names here 
would be invidious. Though all who depress the age de- 
serve as much castigation as those who by their talents raise 
it deserve eulogy, these are not of sufficient importance. 
Collectively, only, they are so. With such as we have last 
mentioned, the drama has sunk from the educated and the 
tasteful to the uncultivated, and those of coarser pleasures, 
— from the refined gentleman to the intelligent trader, and 
from him to the small shop-keeper, the inferior class of op- 
eratives, the ignorant, and the degraded. 

The acted drama of our age is at the best but of a poor 
kind. It has been popular because it was small, and it was 
small because it merely sought popularity. But the great 
heart of the world, although it beat faintly, has not lost its 
vitality; and the sympathies, capacities, and wants of the 
human soul will manifest themselves. Whilst the stage only 
sought in general to shadow forth the smaller peculiarities 
of an actual and every-day life domesticity, there have been 
men in whom all the passionate energies and imaginings of 
our nature would burst forth. These men belonging to lit- 
erature, and not to the stage, have been rightly designated 
as " unacted dramatists," and the press gave to the world 
what the corrupted stages were too sunken in their own 
earthly ruins to be able to believe in, or even recognize as 
having any affinity with their own existence. The spirit of 
the drama no longer trod, but was trodden into " the boards," 
and therefore a set of unacted dramatists arose, and will 
some day be seen and heard. 

It has been erroneously fancied that inflated with a litera- 
ry position and high notions, they both envied, and looked 
down upon their acted fraternity, and thought them mere usur- 
pers. A greater calumny could not have been devised. On the 
contrary, the unacted dramatists consider those at present 
occupying the stage, to be its only supporters ; so far from 
envying their position, they consider their abilities under- 
rated, and not sufficiently remunerated ; and in all their sue- 



AND WILLIAM MACREADY. 247 

cesses they sympathize and rejoice. But that in the pure 
element of dramatic composition they also consider them- 
selves worthy to be "ranked with some of the dramatists of 
a nobler era," is undoubtedly true, — and one of them has 
been heard to set at nought the scoffs of his time, by claim- 
ing to rank, in the pure elements of tragedy, with the dra- 
matists of the Greek or Elizabethan ages.* How far any of 
those " high and remote" claims may have grounds, it is 
impossible to devote space for examination ; they are men- 
tioned, however, to show at least the vitality and self-reliance 
of the dramatic spirit, and that besides the known and acted 
men, there is a" brood" as yet beneath the earth, who may 
one day spring up like the dragon's teeth sown by Cadnms. 
But it has been asked by some, even in our own country, 
who, not seeing a play, are by no means sure of its existence 
— " Who are those unacted dramatists?" The answer from 
lovers of the elder drama would be — " Shakspeare, in respect 
of at least two-thirds of his plays ; and Ben Jonson, Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, Ford, Webster, Marlowe, — in fact all 
the rest of the Elizabethan dramatists, who are absolutely 
unacted. Not to confuse the question, however, let us speak 
of the modern drama as it is ; — " Who then are these un- 
acted dramatists ?" The answer must be — " Nearly all the 
best authors." The knowledge of some and the ignorance 
of others of the dramatic art, is not, at present, the question; 
the object is to show that all are treated with nearly the same 
exclusion ; in fact, that there is manifestly the strongest ten- 
dency in the present age to be dramatic, but its chief au- 
thors have no means of learning the art. To go no farther 
back than Byron, Southey, Shelley, Coleridge, the list in- 
cludes almost every author eminent in works of imagination 
and invention. Even Wordsworth and Keats, — the two last 
men from whom any thing in the shape of a drama could be 
expected, have written tragedies. Surely nothing can more 
directly show the breadth of the external influences of this 
Spirit of the Age. It has even penetrated to the heart of the 
aristocracy, as shown in the dramas of Lord Francis Eger- 
ton, Lord John Russell, Lord John Manners, Lord Beau- 



♦ Our esteemed Contributor avoids naming tlie Author of " Cosmo de Medici," 
'and " Gregory V^II.," for obvious reasons ; but lest some others might have to bear 
the odium of taking their position into their own bands, tlie ofiender is hereby 
" given lip " to justice. — Ed. 



248 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

niont, &-C. ; the " Francesca di Faenza" of the latter, con- 
taining some of the finest dramatic writing and situation of 
modern times. 

The Drama is a root ; a theatrical show is a mere blos- 
som. One is born of its age, the other grows through it, 
out of the past into the future. The poet deals with eternal 
nature, and the eternal effects of nature. The poetaster 
deals with the tastes of men as formed by their circumstan- 
ces, and fashioned by convention and association ; the poet 
with the passions of men, and the qualities of things. The 
one is guided by mere association, the other by analogy.* 
The one by casual prejudices, the other by truths. The 
poetaster appeals to the pleasurable recollections and notions 
by association ; the poet extends our knowledge and expe- 
rience, making the soul wise, because he proceeds by 
analogy. There are two kinds of dramatists. He who 
seeks to reflect back the sentiments, feelings, prejudices, 
and foibles of the day ; who is at once an echo and a glass; 
— -and he who, passing by these common modes of procuring 
success, exemplifies the human creature in all the various 
phases that its intellect, temperament, passions, and desires 
produce. 

They may to a certain degree, and perhaps must, be 
mingled. But it is easy to see which mode will be pursued 
by those whose sole aim is the applause of" a house." At 
the hustings, the brawling reiteration of catch-words must 
be more successful (tn use the favourite and hard-ridden 
modern phrase) than Plato or Coleridge would have been 

It may naturally be expected that some space should be 
devoted to the productions of two gentlemen who have 
written for the stage, and have attracted a large share of 
public attention by their well-merited success in other depart- 
mentsof literature, as well as law, politics, and various valuable 
public services. But, for these reasons, Mr. Serjeant Tal- 
fourd, and Sir E. L. Bulwer, will receive a separate and 
more entire attention than could here be given to their 
claims. It will therefore be sufficient iii the present paper 
to say that Talfourd — the representative of the classical 



* Mr, Henry Mayhew, in his " What to tench, and how to teach it," was, we 
believe, the first author who forcibly marlied out and illustrated this important 
distinction and theory. We also regard the treatises on the Drama by this gentle- 
man's brother, Mr. Edward Mayhew, us highly deserving of careful study. 



AND WILLIAM MACREADY. 249 

drama, as Sheridan Knovvles is of the romantic, — did really 
" stand in the gap " during the periods when there were few, 
if any such dramas as have since been published; and they 
jointly maintained the precarious existence of the English 
drama. Sir E. L. Bulwer, can hardly be considered as a 
dramatist, having pursued this class of writing, not from 
any strong internal gift and predominating impulse, but 
rather as a man of first-rate talent and ingenuity, who could 
produce any kind of literary article that might be in request, 
and having " all appliances and means to boot," could not 
very easily (though he has managed that, too, occasionally) 
do other than succeed. This justly admired, and far more 
dramatic novelist, was apparently drawn to the stage by the 
ambition and excitement of a new and difficult pursuit, and 
every facility for learning the art, and every theatrical 
assistance being sedulously afforded him, his versatile ability 
and great industry were profitably rewarded. Above all 
things, however, his exertions for the freedom of the stage, 
long since, entitle him to the gratitude and respect of dra- 
matists and actors. 

Of the histrionic Art, at the head of which, in this 
country, Mr. Macready has stood of late years, by legitimate 
succession no less than by superior attainments and ener- 
gies, it will not be requisite to say much, nor of its profess- 
ors, because the nature of their position renders their claims 
so well known to the public. But the Art and its professors 
become of additional importance when it is considered that 
they excite the efforts — and to no purpose, — of all the most 
energetic and creative intellects in our literature. 

While the biography and stage recollections of the most 
experienced mountebank of the time,* whose " experience " 
has been characterized by every degree of well-merited 
failure, could only produce, at best, a long account of 
trading speculations, and mechanical details, conducted 
with all the arrogance of a grossly self-satisfied ignorance, 
— it is impossible to conceive of any biographical and pro- 
fessional recollections which would involve so large an 



* Here is an instance of the power of " position in this country, and of irresponsi- 
bility in a manager. A well-known author of the highest ability, — Mr. Robert Bell, 
a truthful historian, an elegant biographer, and a conscientious critic, wha is more- 
over universally respected and esteemed, has been subject to a great public injury, 
and, apparently, without any chance of redress. 

12 



250 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

amount of melancholy interest, to literary men more espe- 
cially, as those of Mr. Macready. 

Nothing like sufficient space could here be given for 
such recollections as Mr. Macready's professional career 
must embody, even if we possessed the materials. But how 
many phases of them present themselves to the mind? 
They must tell of early studies and difficulties, of efforts 
and disappointments, of renewed energies and labours, 
while vague aspirations and palpable ambitions broke 
through the fogs and mists of circumstance, as did the dan- 
gerous vision of a crown upon the yet uncertain mind of 
Macbeth. They must tell of slow acquirements, slow ad- 
vances, chagrins, mortifications, exasperations, and re- 
doubled efforts, with some successes, though so dispropor- 
tionate to the efforts, the hopes, and, in many cases, to the 
just deserts. Gradually they would display successes, and 
popular successes, and the rank of " principal " in them, 
but not in the highest walk. Yet here would commence 
more completely the consciousness of that undue position 
over the intellectual men of a country, which every very 
successful actor or actress attains, in respect of one of the 
highest departments of literature. His recollections would 
now tell of dissatisfactions of position, and cast of charac- 
ters, and of nobler aims at greater excellence ; of his attain- 
ment of the first class of characters, and his hard-earned 
successes in them, notwithstanding the ail-but eclipsing and 
overwhelming genius, energy, and unequalled popularity of 
Kean ; — of tormenting struggles of rivalry, and to maintain 
his position ; of his gradual security, and, by degrees, of his 
fortitude, temperance, and unconquerable perseverance, 
bringing him his reward as sole possessor of the tragic 
throne, from which, step by step, with staggering power, his 
meteoric sword fading from his hand — his inspiration now 
bordering upon delirium — the intemperate, heart-desolate 
wreck of Edmund Kean, with hands still grappling the 
shape-thronged air, reeled away half unconsciously into the 
darkness. 

Mr. Macready was now admissibly the first living trage- 
dian ; and if the anxiety of authors to obtain his assistance 
in the production of their pieces upon the stage had previ- 
ously been great, it was now immensely increased ; and 
their overtures, and flatteries, and dedications, were enough 



ADD WILLIAM MACREADY. 251 

to have turned the head of most men into that hallucinatory 
condition of mind, in which most potentates necessarily 
exist. Yet such is the contradictory nature of circum- 
stances, and of theatrical circumstances above nearly 
all others, and such the predominating power of exter- 
nal position in this country, above every kind of 
internal individual capacity, that at this same time Mr. 
Macready's position being tha> of an actor under that of a 
manager, it signified nothing that he was immeasurably su- 
perior, in himself and in every attainment, — he was never- 
theless subject to the grossest ill-treatment and insult from 
one of the lowest. How that unbearable condition of things 
terminated, is well known ; and how universally did Mr. 
Macready carry with him the sympathy and approval of all 
educated men, and of all true lovers of the Drama, of com- 
mon justice, and common decency, must be equally fresh in 
the memory of the public. There was no other alternative, 
and Macready became a Manager. 

It is not requisite to dwell upon this gentleman's great 
successes in wliat he sought to effect, as matter of taste in 
the " getting up " of dramas ; nor upon his repeated failure, 
as matter of pecuniary speculation. His influence upon the 
national intellect as a manager, must, however, come under 
discussion, together with a view of managerial influence, 
generally, whether in this, or any other country. Nor can 
we do better than quote a few remarks on the rise of the 
drama in Spain, — for though they are applied to the neglect 
experienced by Cervantes, the pith of the whole question 
will be seen to be one and the same. 

"If the only thing requisite in order to originate, to revive, to reform, or to re- 
create the drama of a civilized country, was dramatic genius ; if to possess the faculty 
and execute the work, as matter of literary composition, were all that was needed to 
produce the effect or commence its development, — then perhaps might the name of 
Cervantes have stood parallel in Spain with the highest names of our dramatists of 
the age of Elizabeth. But between original dramatic genius, and its desired attempts, 
there come three powerful intermediates, any one of which may prevent the very chance 
of fair trial, or any trial at all, — these are the public tastes of the day, influence of 
capital (or the want of it), and the individual capacities and characters — in fact the 
private taste of managers of theatres. The public taste may be good or vicious, its 
reception of new tilings is always a doubtful matter ; capital is rarely, if ever, em- 
barked upon a new thing oi ideal pretensions ; and to say that a particular novelty of 
any kind would be to the interest of a manager to produce, might be true, or untrue, 
^that is not the question, but what he thinks or chooses to do ; and whether he be 
very wise or very ignorant, he has hitherto been ' the law,' as to what genius or talent 
should make its appeal to the public through the medium of the stage."* 

Apart from all other considerations, that a public pro- 

* Essay on " The Dramatic Mind of Europe," by R. H. Home. 



252 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

fessing to understand, and certainly having so universal an 
admiration of Shakspeare, should not have sufficiently pat- 
ronized a manager who displayed so much anxiety to pro- 
duce his plays under the name of " revivals," with a prodi- 
gality of scenic illustration and supernumerary appointments, 
all excellent, expensive, appropriate, and skilfully applied — 
but that, on the contrary, the public should in very few 
instances be found sufficiently numerous (as the paying 
portion of the audience) to half-fill the theatre after the ex- 
citement of the first three or four nights, so that eventually 
the accomplished and indefatigable manager is obliged to go 
to America to recover his health and retrieve his damaged 
fortunes, — would appear to be one of the most inexplicable 
problems of modern times, if not one of its deepest dis- 
graces. Still, there must be some solution to this ? Per- 
haps the public may not, after all, be so perverse as 
appears "? The truth is so important to all the interests 
of dramatic literature and the stage, that, if it can be dis- 
covered, some hope of a remedy and a new and prosper- 
ous course might perhaps be descried. A few opinions and 
suggestions shall therefore be offered in these concluding 
pages. 

Whatever troubles, pertinacities, and wearisome appli- 
cations Mr. Macready may have experienced from the 
authors of dramas previous to his becoming a manager, it 
cannot be doubted but that they must have multiplied pro- 
digiously afterwards. The most improbable plots, or the 
most inextricable non-constructions, with characters at once 
monstrous and imbecile, outrageous and inconsequential, 
are forwarded to managers by hundreds every season, from 
the pens of educated, half educated, and totally uneducated 
men, — without the ability to put two acts, or perhaps two 
scenes, together with consecutive action and direct purpose ; 
without an indea of consistency in any one character ; without 
the least prevision of effects upon an audience; with a total dis- 
regard of what is convenient or impossible in the nature and 
sequence of scenery; yet each one believing that his play 
is, of all others, the most eligible to the manager, and — if the 
notion of a " cast" occurs at all — the most eligible for the 
talents of the given company. The fate of all these pieces 
may be anticipated. But there is another class of men, 
who at intervals of from one to three years, transmit dra- 



AND WILLIAM MACKEADT. 253 

matic productions to managers. These authors are not 
numerous ; some of them are known in the literary world, 
some not. They are, for the most part, solitary students of 
nature and the passions, of philosophy, of literature, and of 
art; they have worked secretly for years, and the midnight 
lamp and the shadow on the wall have been sole witnesses 
of their toils, their enthusiasms, and their aspiring dreams. 
Straitened in means, no doubt, they usually are, so that at 
last the time which they have given to preparing themselves 
to be worthy of some honour, needs a little remuneration. 
And these men are treated precisely with the same rejection 
and neglect as those previously described. So certainly as 
they have suffered themselves to be deluded by the compli- 
ments and exhortations to publish their tragedies or plays, 
and to renew their efforts in the same class of composition, 
so certainly they have been injured in the worst way ; their 
time, their energies, and their health wasted, and in cases 
where the impulse was too strong to be checked, and they 
have had no private resources, they have been ruined. That 
the dramas they forwarded to managements were unskilful 
in some respects, dangerous in others, and wanting practi- 
cal assistance in many, cannot admit of a doubt ; but it is 
questionable if they were more unskilful, dangerous, or 
wanting, than those accepted and acted productions which, 
with every assistance from managers and actors, have proved 
ruinous to all parties. 

Abundant examples might be adduced to prove this. 
Perhaps the two most striking would be those of " Martin- 
uzzi" and "Plighted Troth" — the first produced under 
the auspices of unexperienced amateurs and conflicting 
practical opinions ; the other produced by a most experi- 
enced management, and all governed by one head. It may 
be said that Mr. Macready did not incur a loss exceeding 
five or six hundred pounds, by the disastrous failure of 
" Plighted Troth," whereas the chivalrous experiment of 
Mr. Stephens cost him, perhaps, in all, more than double 
that sum. Yet that was caused by his own will, — his re- 
solve not be conquered, but to play a five act tragedy in 
defiance of an absurd law, and of the friends of the old 
managerial system ; and this he did during upwards of 
twenty nights. "Plighted Troth," be it admitted, con- 
tained, as well as " Martinuzzi," several scenes of true dra- 



254 SHERIDAN KNOWLKS, 

matic genius ; it was the bad judgment of all parties that 
made them both look so preposterous. 

But if the unacted Drama be held in no regard by the- 
atrical people, it is not much more esteemed by the ma- 
jority of the public press. The slightest acted piece often 
has a long notice ; whereas, of an unacted tragedy or comedy 
any thing, or nothing, may be said, — and any thing with 
impunity.* 

"But the Unacted, and consequently the unaided Drama, has at lenffth made some 
progress ; under every disadvantage, with every thing in its disfavour, it has made it» 
way against its well-provided opponent. The Acted Drama, with all the aid of 
numerous actors, beautiful paintings, charming music — with all the dazzling fascina- 
tions that belong to public shows — with fishion, custom, and hereditary predilection 
in its favour, — has dwindled and degenerated, until the voice of criticism, of the Drama- 
tists themselves, and of the intellectual part of the public, have declared it inferior in 
mental power to the Unacted ; — have declared that, with all the facilities that prac- 
tice can give, with all the means that experience and knowledge can afford, it is more 
essentially deficient in the true elements of dramatic power, than the Unacted. The 
Unacted Drama may have awkwardnesses, incongruities, and even absurdities, from 
its not having the advantages of experience and practical exercise. But that it is 
great in conception, powerful in expression, strong in originality, and vigorous from 
its freshness, is allowed. It has again dared to step within the terrific circle of the 
passions, and to show in appalling strife those never-dying elements of humanity."* 

What with the claims of the able and the incompetent, 
the reasonable and the unreasonable, the men of genius and 
talent with a definite aim, and the men of self-d elusion and 
a puzzled will, — the logical heads and the half insane, the 
sound advice of one friend, the flattering advice of another, 
and the retreating opinion of all, as the manager himself 
began to come to a decision — Mr. Macready must have had 
a most feverish seat of power, and a most troublesome and 
thankless reign. The bad success here which caused him 
to make a trip to America, has very possibly been the sav- 
ing of his life and health, and may be regarded as a gratu- 
latory result by every body, since every body must look for- 
ward with interest to his career, which will probably be re- 
newed in this country by fresh " revivals" of Shakspeare 
in one of the smaller theatres. So placed, with a less lavish 
expenditure in gorgeous redundancies and real upholstery, 
and wisely confining himself to the old established stock 

* A professional critic, in a fit of frank cordiality, once told a certain unacted 
dramatist, that he h id written dispir.iginjly of his tragedy from a prejudice he had 
conceived against him on account of his superabundant whiskers — and he regretted it. 
The offending hair had since been cut off, and he was reconciled. It never struck 
this critic that the use of a public organ for any trivial private prejudice or purpose, 
was a startling confession ! 

t Lecture on the " Relative Value of the Acted and the Unacted Drama," by F. 
G, Tomllni, Secretary to the Shakspeare Society, &c," 



AND WILLIAM MACREADT. 355 

pieces, he would most probably be very successful ; and 
that he would be most deservedly so, there can hardly exist 
a doubt. But he should carefully avoid all new pieces, and 
all pretence of encouraging living dramatists ; first, because, 
instructed by long experience, he must have found that it is 
his destiny to select mediocrity or failure; and secondly, 
because he will thus cease to excite the efforts and occupy 
the time of men of intellect, to no purpose. 

Mr. Macready's merits as an actor are far greater than 
his defects; let us therefore contemplate the former, chiefly. 
He is the first artist on the stage. On all those innumera- 
ble points of art connected with the stage, which he has 
studied from his youth, there is no one who possesses more 
knowledge or skill in their application ; and no one pos- 
sesses both in an equal degree. He is rarely " at home " 
in any thing new, either of principle or practice, without 
long study, if then. His conception is slow, and by de- 
grees ; nor does it ever attain beyond a certain point. That 
point is the extremity of all that his study and practice can 
discover and embody ; and it is very much. He has no 
revelations of genius, no inspirations except those which are 
unconsciously " given off" at times from great physical 
energies. If he had any such revelations, he would adopt 
them doubtfully, and partially, and so defeat their essential 
meaning. But when he does embrace the whole of a char- 
acter, (such as William Tell, Coriolanus, lago. Cardinal 
Wolsey, King John,) he leaves little undone, and all the 
rest to admire, in the highest degree. He dresses to per- 
fection. He is the only man on the stage who seems 
to have a fine eye for true harmony of colour. Some- 
times he has allowed splendid dresses to be destroyed 
by an equally splendid back-ground of similar colour, but 
never when he himself is in front of it. If he wore but a 
blanket, he would have a back-ground that should make 
that blanket the most gracious object the eye could rest 
upon — perhaps the focus of all attraction. He reads poetry 
very badly, as to rhythm — broken up — without melody — 
harsh — unmusical — shattered prose ; and yet he speaks with 
exquisite distinctness, and very impressively, because he is 
thoroufrhly in earnest. There is great finish in all he does 
— a definite aim, clearly worked out — and those who find 
little to admire in his acting, the fault is in them. 



256 SHERIDAN KN0WLE9, 

As a manager he has unexampled merits in his attempt 
to separate the theatres from their long-established union 
with barefaced licentiousness. It is to his great and lasting 
honour that he is the first manager who seems ever to have 
felt that Art has nothing in common with " the town." 
Great merit is also due to him for his indefatigable industry 
and attention to all the business of the theatre. One in- 
stance of his thoughtful care, though to the outside of the 
walls, should be noticed : he successfully defeated the bru- 
tality tvhich characterizes an English audience in entering 
the pit on croiodecl nights; and the public, especially the 
female portion, should be grateful for so needful an atten- 
tion. His exertions to improve the stage arrangements and 
appointments, are well known ; they extended from broad 
effects down to the minutest details, — perhaps the former 
were sometimes injured by the latter. He made the super- 
numeraries act — a mortal labour. He not only multiplied 
the brood of these " turkeys," but he crammed them, and 
made men and women of them. It has been currently re- 
ported — probably on no better grounds than because he does 
not sing the drinking song of lago — that Mr. Macready 
does not understand, or care for music. This can hardly 
be true : he has introduced music amidst the Shakspearean 
dialogue, and at " times and seasons " in a far more poetical 
way than any other manager. He has applied fine scenery 
and dioramic effects to Shakspeare more appropriately to the 
sense of the words, than were ever done before ; but as to 
the effect upon the action, (excepting in the Chronicle plays 
where the want of action might justify extraneous aid,) and 
as to the effect upon the poetry, in all cases, there can 
be no doubt that both are injured by the predominating, 
and sometimes overwhelming effect upon the external senses 
— not intended by the poet. As a manager of business, and 
in all agreements and pecuniary dealings, Mr. Macready 
has always been liberal, generous, thoroughly to be relied 
upon, and of unimpeachable integrity. 

But the merits of an individual, as an actor or manager, 
or both, however great and meritorious, must necessarily be 
a small matter in themselves compared with their influence 
and effect upon one of the highest departments of the lite- 
rature of a great nation. This, on the whole, in Mr. Mac- 
ready's case, may be pronounced as good — an aggregate 



AND WILLIAM MACREADY. 257 

advantage, though bad in its individual instances. Good, 
inasmuch as it has largely assisted in stirring up the dra- 
matic Spirit of the country ; bad, inasmuch as, with some 
three or four exceptions, it has led to nothing but labour in 
vain. He has advised or exhorted nearly every author who 
sent him a drama of any pretensions, to publish it — and 
w-rite another, — write another by all means — that he could 
do the thing if he would, — why did he not? &c. Mr. 
Macready, throughout his whole career, has produced on 
the stage no great or standard work of dramatic genius ; or, 
if " Ion" and " Virginius" be regarded as exceptions, who 
will name a third? — and he has wasted the time of more 
men of genius and talent than any other individual on 
record. 

Mr. Macready shares a part of the latter accusation with 
high authorities for precedent. Even Garrick did not pro- 
duce on the stage any new stock tragedy of the first class; 
nor did the Kemble family, nor did Edmund Kean. These 
facts seem to lead to the conclusion that managers and 
actors, when unassisted by established reputations, have no 
taste for any thing beyond second and third-rate plays. It is 
in vain to say they could find no better than they produced. 
Too truly they could not. No one finds that which he has 
no soul to search for, or no eye to perceive. The great dis- 
coveries in the physical world by men of science were not 
their inventions ; the things were there before they searched. 
They discovered the things they sought, because they knew 
them when they saw them ; and the powers of nature are 
not limited to any particular age. The " mighty dead" 
are not mighty because they are dead — though it would 
seem that so many people think so. They were once alive, 
and laughed at. 

Mr. Macready's character (we deal only with such ele- 
ments of it as are directly or indirectly of public influence) 
is made up of stronger opposites than is usual, however 
common those antagonisms are in forcible characters. He 
has great energies of action, and a morbid will. He has a 
limited imagination, with a large ambition. His imagina- 
tion is slow and dull of vision, but quick and sensitive to 
feel. It, therefore, continually misleads him beyond retreat. 
For this reason, his hasty judgments are always wrong, and 
his slow judgments futile from exhausted impulses. In these 

12* 



S58 SHERIDAN KNOWLKS, 

respects he has been much assisted by Mr. Serle. It is 
evidently the opinion of this gentleman that a cold dispas- 
sionate judgment is the only popular test of excited ima- 
ginations. His advice, theref -e, is always judicious, and 
ineffectual. But it is quite a mistake to suppose that Mr. 
Macready is misled by the advice of friends. \Ve are aware 
that Mr. Forster and Mr. Serle have been commonly accused 
of this; but we think very unjustly. Mr. Macready takes 
no advice but that which backs his own opinion. His con- 
stant errors in judgment show that they proceed from the 
same man. His spirit is a hot-headed steed, capable of 
leaping great conclusions ; but he wants faith in those 
things, and in himself, which would enable him to succeed 
greatly ; and when he does leap, he makes up for a long 
arrear of doubts by wilfulness, and " falls on the other side." 
He has genial feelings, but a morbid fancy which troubles 
them. It pains him to laugh. His temperament is impetu- 
ous, his hopes dreary, his purposes high-minded, his opin- 
ions conflicting, and " his luck against him," with his own 
assistance. He boldly incurred the odium of allowing Anti- 
Corn-law meetings in Covent Garden, besides giving an 
arm-sweeping slash at recent taxations in a farewell address; 
and he made a speech to the poor Duke of Cambridge, on 
receiving a " testimonial,'' at which all his best friends 
blushed, and he himself, before the farce was concluded, 
which had cost so much pains to get up, wished a large 
trap-door would unbolt itself beneath his feet. As a patron 
of modern dramatic literature, he has been totally mistaken 
by others, and the less he ever attempts of this kind in 
future, the better for all parties. As a supporter of the 
Shakspearean drama, and all the fine old "stock pieces," he 
has not been encouraged according to his deserts; and, 
with all his faults, the want of sufficient patronage in his 
own country, is discreditable to the age. 

Few men ever had the sympathies of the public more 
completely in their power than Sheridan Knowles. Scarcely 
any imprudence or deficiency that he could be guilty of, in 
a new play, would cause the audience to damn it, though 
they might not go again to see it. With Macready the case 
is different. He always has enemies in the " house," and a 
large party, or parties, against him out of the " house." 
Some for one thing, some for another, abstract or personal, 



AND WILLIAM MACREADT. 259 

private or public. Strong and unfailing friends he also has, 
and thev form a party, though comparatively a small one, 
and rapidly decreasing, Like all very anxious men, Mr. 
Macready, besides his bad judgment, is unlucky ; and Mr. 
Knowles, like all careless men, is usually in good luck, 
notwithstanding his equal deficiency in judgment. The one 
" darkens averse" at all critical strictures, the other calls 
every critic he meets " my dear boy." Mr. Macready has 
had, however, to endure many ill-natured and personal re- 
marks and insinuations from various parties — some who 
were, and others who thought they were aggrieved by him; 
and on the other hand, he has had the advantage of more 
assistance, systematic and instant to his need, from the 
public press, than almost any other individual of his day. 
If tho.se who have publicly uttered anonymous complaints 
against him were known, with all their affairs in relation to 
him, there would be a better means of judging the case 
among all parties; and, on the other hand, if his public ap- 
plauders and supporters were known, with all their affairs in 
relation to him, there would be a better means of judging 
among all parties. As it is, all the parties must " fret it out," 
till, sooner or later, a change comes over the whole scene — 
some grand explosion takes place — the atmosphere clears, 
and a fair, open field for dramatists may then give them the 
means of proving their existence. 

So great are the difficulties attending five-act pieces, 
either tragedies, comedies, or plays, that there is no instance 
of a successful author in them, throughout our literature of 
the present day. No, there is not one. Shall we mention 
Mr. Sheridan Knowles, who has writtten three or four times 
as many five-ac pieces as any other author, all of which 
have been acted? What is his success? One tragedy, 
scarcely ever played now ; and two comedies. His last 
four dramas have been dead failures, notwithstanding their 
fine detached scenes, dialogues, and genuine poetry. Shall 
we name Sir E. L. Bulwer? With all the professional 
friendship and assistance he has had from Mr. Macready and 
others, and notwithstanding his great ingenuity, and tact, 
and versatile skill, his dramatic list presents marked failures, 
with two exceptions, only one of which is now acted. Mr. 
Serjeant Talfourd's success rests upon one tragedy, seldora 
acted. As for the many great " dispoveries" of Mr. Mac- 



360 SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 

ready, they have vanished for ever. We allude to such 
equivocal tragedies as "Mary Stewart," " Plighted Troth," 
the much-puffed " Gisippus '." 6z,g. &lc. There has never 
been in our own times one successful acted dramatist of the 
higher class. Yet some of these writers (as well as others 
less known, or not known at all) are probably able to 
achieve many successes, could they have practically mas- 
tered their art. To do this there is no opportunity. The 
difficulties of the art are not greater than the difficulty of 
obtaining any sufficient means of study and experiment. 
The man who has succeeded most profitably, is the one who 
has had most of these means and " appliances." 

There are no doubt a dozen good collateral causes for 
the decline of the acted drama ; but those at the root of the 
matter are simply these, — that the actors, who never did, 
and never can, originate or contribute to a Dramatic Lit- 
erature, have got the exclusive power of the stage ; — that 
authors of genius have no free access to the stage for the 
production of pieces that originate in their owti strongest 
impulses ; and that nearly all critical literature is arrayed 
against them by reason of the total disbelief in their practi- 
cable existence, or the possible composition of actable dra- 
mas which are not seen. We need seek no more causes 
than these. There is a body without a soul; and the body 
has got the visible position. 

The Drama, (meaning its literature,) like the Age, has 
been at the lowest, and both are manifestly rising to a purer 
taste. Whether the circumstances of modern society and 
civilization are eventful enough to give new incidents to the 
Drama, may be doubted. If not, it must and will, in 
future, take a more imaginative and philosophical tone. 

A visible Drama more nearly allied to the universal 
genius of the age must arise now that physical restraints 
are removed by the late legislation. The new order of dra- 
matists, both acted and unacted, only await the man, come 
when he may, who, having the material means in his power, 
shall mould a form congenial to the present spirit of the age ; 
and this once done, the abundant existing dramatic genius 
will gather round it, and the Drama again become popular. 
It will of course be understood, that no removal of legal 
restrictions, nor any other outward circumstances can bring 
about a new dramatic period, unless dramatists have a ready 



AND WILLIAai aiACREADV 261 

access to theatres, and the services of the best actors. 
Without these, any possible number of the most genuine 
dramatists would not be of the least avail. They would be 
like disembodied souls; or like a waggon load of gold on 
the wrong side of a turnpike, where gold was not recognized. 
But with these necessary aids, a Drama will again be cre- 
ated. Theories that have long oppressed it, circumstances 
that have stunted and destroyed it, are rapidly passing away. 
The hope that external circumstances could re-ignite it, 
must now be for ever abandoned. Actor and actress, man- 
ager and mountebank, bandmaster and speculator, one after 
another, fail to do so; and the hope of their being ever able 
to effect a revival of the Drama, or a dramatic success of 
any kind, — the most pertinacious of those fallacies clung to 
by those who call themselves " the practical men," — is now 
utterly extinguished. The utmost that Garrick effected — 
perhaps the most generally accomplished and versatile actor 
that ever lived — was merely to make the theatre fashionable, 
and " a rage." If it be true that he also improved or even 
created a better taste, he did nothing to produce or aid the 
creation of the thing tasted. It was there before him. The 
same may be said of the Kembles; and of Edmund Kean. 
Much more has been aimed at by Mr. Macready, but not 
with much better success. Shakspeare improved the Drama 
of his time, and created fresh dramas. An actor can only 
improve or injure taste. Mr. Macready has done both — im- 
proved taste in poetical scenery, and the " getting up," and 
injured it in almost confirming the taste for expensive up- 
holstery and display. The imagination of creative drama- 
tists can alone call forth any new spirit and form of Drama. 
The most profuse and admirable external aids can only 
foster mediocrity, and are so far detrimental because they 
dazzle and mislead the public judgment till it cannot dis- 
tinguish the essential from the extraneous. 

That the good management of a theatre requires the 
power to be vested in one man, is no doubt true ; and per- 
haps when we look at the discordant and conflicting talents, 
vanities, and interests, all in vigorous motion — his power 
should be almost despotic. But how far it is good for such 
management to be vested in a principal actor, in full pos- 
session of his acting faculties, is another question. Instead 
of enlarging the sphere of the drama, he is sure to narrow 



262 SHERinAN KNOWLES, 

it to his own exclusive standard. Instead of rendering it 
universal, he will make it particular. Instead of a reflexion 
of humanity, it will become the pampered image of an 
individual. " I cannot see myself in this part," is a favourite 
expression of Mr. Farren's when he does not like a new 
play; and may be taken as a general characteristic of all 
the " stars." The stars, however, are disappearing, and 
with them the long suite of their retainers, the scenery-mon- 
gers, decorators, restorers, tailors, antiquarians, upholster- 
ers, who have had their day. Capitalists have backed them 
with unbounded wealth ; experience has lent them all her 
aid ; trickery all her cunning ; puffery all her placards, 
bills, paragraphs, and the getting up of " stories ;" the press 
all its hundred tongues, telling of their nightly doings — be- 
sides the special tongues in cases where a public organ has 
been a private engine — and what has been the result 1 
Bankruptcies, failures, dispersions, flights, half-salaries, no 
salaries, farewell dinners, debts, prisons, — and fresh candi- 
dates for the fatal seat. The fresh candidate, who in most 
cases is a fine old hand at a failure, usually finds a fresh 
capitalist to back him. " He is a man of such practical ex- 
perience!" says the capitalist. Mooncalf! of ivhat is his 
experience ? Are not the practical results of all his efforts 
precisely of a kind to make every capitalist in his rational 
senses, start back from his disastrous " experience?" But 
there is also another peculiarity attached to a managerial 
lease-holder. He pays people if he can ; if he cannot, he 
laughs in their faces. Any body else would be arrested, or 
knocked down, or something. He stands in a sporting atti- 
tude ; and nothing happens to him ! Every now and then, 
when a dashing speculating sort of" man about town " finds 
himself totally without money, and does not know what in 
the world to do next, he says to himself, — "Damme! I'll 
take a theatre !" Very likely he will find backers with 
money as soon as he has taken it ; in any case, the proprie- 
tors are all too happy to let him the house. He invariably 
fails. Some are paid, many not. Who cares ? That dash- 
ing speculator is not a scamp, " bless your heart !" — but an 
excellent good fellow. He has such enterprise in him ! — 
such experience! Why, the impudent rogue absolutely 
risked nothing — he had nothing to risk. Oh, but he has 
such enterprise ! And thus with two unexamined catch- 



AND WILLIAM MACREADY. 263 

words — enterprise and experience — the proprietors of thea- 
tres, and the poor mooncalf capitalist, delude and injure 
themselves and the public. 

How totally inapplicable to Mr. Macready must be any 
of the preceding remarks, with reference to pecuniary deal- 
ings, need not be repeated ; it is the more to be regretted 
that the system he pursued of profuse expenditure upon ex- 
trinsic adornments, was of a kind which never can prove 
successful, and which, for his sake, as well as that of the 
poetry of the Drama, we most earnestly trust he will never 
repeat. 

During periods when the Drama and the stage have 
been almost at the last ebb, it should be recollected that 
Sheridan Knowles and Mr. Macready have continually ex- 
erted themselves to open new springs, or recall the retiring 
waters. If in vain, their indefatigable energies are at least 
worthy of admiration. Both have now been before the pub- 
lic these twenty-five or thirty years, and have well earned 
the estimation they have obtained. Mr. Knowles com- 
menced his career as an actor, but has some time since 
abandoned it. He is still in vigorous life, and full of excel- 
lent spirits — poetical, convivial, and Hibernian. In private 
he is a prodigious favourite with all who know him ; frank, 
burly, smiling, off-hand, voluble, and saying whatever comes 
uppermost ; with a large heart beating under a great broad 
and dee[) chest, not easily accessible to care or trouble, but 
constitutionally jovial and happy. Mr. Macready in private 
is good-natured, easy, unaffected, without the least attempt 
at display, extremely gentleman-like, habitually grave, and 
constitutionally saturnine. His smile is melancholy, and 
his expression is occasionally of great kindness. He speaks 
little; with frequent hesitation, but well : with good sense, 
and enlarged and benevolent sympathies, moral and political. 
His views of art are confused between the real and ideal. 
Mr. Knowles occasionally delivers Lectures on the Drama, 
which are conspicuous for no philosophy or art, and an 
abundance of good humour and the warmest admiration of 
his favourite authors. 



MISS E. B. BARRETT 

AND 

MRS. NORTON. 



" Flower of the Soul ! emblem of sentient Thoughts, 
With prayer on prayer the chortled harps ascending, 
Till at the clouded Portals, humbly bending, 

They, like the holy martyrs' pale cohorts, 
Wait solemnly — while sounds of dew descending 

Their presence recognize, approve, and bless ; — 

Flower! shedding fragrance from a daik recess, 

Thy roots lie passive on this mortal soil; 

Thy beauty blooms on high — serene beyond our coil !" 

" As one who drinks from a charmed cup 

Of foaming and sparkling and murmuring wine, 
Which a mighty Enchantress, filling up. 
Invites to love with her lips divine." 

Shellet. 

" Thy mind shines through thee like a radiant sun. 
Although thy body be a beauteous cloud." 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

It is any thing but handsome towards those who were 
criticised, or fair towards the adventurous critic, to regard, 
as some have done, the article on " Modern English Poet- 
esses," which appeared a few years ago in the "Quarterly 
Review," as a tribute merely of admiration. It was a 
tribute of justice ; and hardly that, because nine ladies were 
reviewed, of very different kind and degree of merit, all in 
the same article. Eight were allowed to wear their laurels; 
the ninth fell a victim. Passing over the victim, who shall 
be nameless, we will say, that the poetical genius, the im- 
passioned fervour, the knowledge of genuine nature and of 
society, of books, of languages, of all that is implied by the 
term of accomplishment, and " though last, not least," the 
highly cultivated talent in the poetic art, displayed by the 
other eight, are such as to entitle them to a higher position 



MISS E. B. BAUUETT, ETC. 265 

than several of the "received " poets of the past and present 
centuries. 

The list we have named comprises, Mrs. Norton ; Miss 
E. B. Barrett ; Maria del Occidente ; Lady Northampton 
(author of " Irene ") ; Caroline Southey ; Miss Lowe ; the 
Author of " IX Poems ;" Sara Coleridge; and one other, a 
lady of rank, whom it was a pity to introduce in company 
where she has no claim to rank. The reviewer proposed to 
make a wreath of them after the manner of Meleager, and 
appropriately commenced with Mrs. Norton as " the Rose^ 
or, if she like it, Love-Iies-a-bleediifg;" and Miss Barrett as 
" Greek Valerian, or Ladder to Heaven, or, if she pleases. 
Wild Angelica." The former lady is well known, person- 
ally, to a large and admiring circle, and is also extensively 
known to the reading public by her works. The latter 
lady, or "fair shade" — whichever she may be — is not 
known personally, to any body, we had almost said; but her 
poetry is known to a highly intellectual class, and she 
" lives " in constant correspondence with many of the most 
eminent persons of the time. When, however, we consider 
the many strange and ingenious conjectures that are made 
in after years, concerning authors who appeared but little 
among their contemporaries, or of whose biography little is 
actually known, we should not be in the least surprised, 
could we lift up our ear out of our grave a century hence, 
to hear some learned Thebans expressing shrewd doubts as 
to whether such an individual as Miss E. B. Barrett had 
ever really existed. Letters and notes, and exquisite Eng- 
lish lyrics, and perhaps a few elegant Latin verses, and 
spirited translations from j^l^schylus, might all be discovered 
under that name ; but this would not prove that such a lady 
had ever dwelt among us. Certain admirable and erudite 
prose articles on the " Greek Christian Poets," might like- 
wise be ascertained by the exhumation of sundry private let- 
ters and documents, touching periodical literature, to have 
been from the hand of that same " Valerian ;" but neither 
the poetry, nor the prose, nor the delightfully gossipping 
notes to fair friends, nor the frank correspondence with 
scholars, such as Lady Jane Grey might have written to 
Roger Ascham — no, not even if the great-grandson of some 
learned Jewish doctor could show a note in Hebrew (quite 
a likely thing really to be extant) with the same signature, 



266 MISS E. B. BARRETT, 

darkly translated by four letters, — nay, though he should 
display as a relic treasured in his family, the very pen, with 
its oblique Hebraic nib, that wrote it — not any one, nor all 
of those things could be sufficient to demonstrate the fact, 
that such a lady had really adorned the present century. 

In such chiaroscuro, therefore, as circumstances permit, 
we will endeavour to offer sufficient grounds for our readers' 
belief, to the end that posterity may at least have the best 
authorities and precedents we can furnish. Confined en- 
tirely to her own apartment, and almost hermetically sealed, 
in consequence of some extremely delicate state of health, 
the poetess of whom we write is scarcely seen by any but 
her own family. But though thus separated from the world 
— and often, during many weeks at a time, in darkness 
almost equal to that of night. Miss Barrett has yet found 
means by extraordinary inherent energies to develope her in- 
ward nature ; to give vent to the soul in a successful strug- 
gle with its destiny while on earth; and to attain and mas- 
ter more knowledge and accomplishments than are usually 
within the power of those of either sex who possess every 
adventitious opportunity, as well as health and industry. 
Six or seven years of this imprisonment she has now en- 
dured, not with vain repinings, though deeply conscious of 
the loss of external nature's beauty ; but with resignation, 
with patience, with cheerfulness, and generous sympathies 
towards the world without ; — with indefatigable " work " by 
thought, by book, by the pen, and with devout faith, and 
adoration, and a high and hopeful waiting for the time when 
this mortal frame " putteth on immortality." 

The period when a strong prejudice existed against 
learned ladies and " blues" has gone by, some time since; 
yet in case any elderly objections may still exist on this 
score, or that some even of the most liberal-minded readers 
may entertain a degree of doubt as to whether a certain 
austere exclusiveness and ungenial pedantry might infuse a 
slight linge into the character of ladies possessing Miss Bar- 
rett's attainments, a (evi words may be added to prevent 
erroneous impressions on this score. Piobably no living 
individual has a more extensive and diffuse acquaintance 
with literature — that of the present day inclusive — than 
Miss Barrett. Although she has read Plato, in the original, 
ffom beginning to end, and the Hebrew Bible from Genesis 



AND MRS. NORTON. 267 

to Malachi, (nor suffered her course to be stopped by the 
Chaldean,) yet there is probably not a single good romance 
of the most romantic kind in whose marvellous and impos- 
sible scenes she has not delighted, over the fortunes of 
whose immaculate or incredible heroes and heroines she has 
not wept ; nor a clever novel or fanciful sketch of our own 
day, over the brightest pages of which she has not smiled 
inwardly, or laughed outright, just as their authors them- 
selves would have desired. All of this, our readers may be 
assured that we believe to be as strictly authentic as the very 
existence of the lady in question, although, as we have 
already confessed, we have no absolute knowledge of this 
fact. But lest the reader should exclaim, " Then, after all, 
there really may be no such person !" we should bear wit- 
ness to having been shown a letter of Miss Mitford's to a 
friend, from which it was plainly to be inferred that she had 
actually seen and conversed with her. The date has unfor- 
tunately escaped us. 

We cannot admit that any picture, engraving, or other 
portrait of Mrs. Norton with which the public has been fa- 
voured does full justice to the original ; nevertheless they may 
be considered as likenesses, to a certain extent, and by rea- 
son of these, and her popular position as an authoress, any 
introductory remarks on the present occasion would be need- 
less. 

There are few poems which would be more acceptable to 
the majority of lovers of poetry than Mrs. Norton's " Dream," 
from which we make the following extract ; — 

" Oh I Twilight '. Spirit that does render birth 
To dim enchantments ; melting heaven with earth, 
Leaving on craggy hills and running streams 
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams ; 
Thy hour to all is welcome ! Faint and sweet 
Thy light falU round the peasant's homeward feet, 
Who, slow returning from his task of toil, 
Sees the low sunset gilil the cultured soil, 
And, tho' such radiance round him brightly glows, 
Marks the small spark his cottage window throws. 
Still as his heart forestalls his weary pace. 
Fondly he dreams of each familar fice. 
Recalls the treasures of his narrow life, 
His rosy children and his sunburnt wife, 
To whom his coming is the chief event 
Of simple days in cheerful labour spent. 
The rich man's ch iriot hath gone whirling past, 
And these poor cottagers have only cast 
One careless glance on all that show of pride, 
Then to their tasks turn'd quietly aside ; 
But him they wait for, him they welcome home, 
Fixed BentineU look forth to see him come ; 



268 MISS E. B. BARRETT, 

The fagot sent for wlien the fire grew dim, 
The frugal meal prepared, are all for him ; 
For him the watching of that sturdy boy, 
For him those smiles of tenderness and joy, 
For him — who plods his sauntering way along. 
Whistling the fragment of some village song !" 

The above is characteristic of a style in which Mrs. Nor- 
ton excels, and it is a popular error to regard her solely as 
the poetess of impassioned personalities, great as she un- 
doubtedly has shown herself in such delineations. 

The next extract is from Miss Barrett's " Seraphim," 
where Ador, a seraph, exhorts Zerah not to linger nor look 
through the closed gate of heaven, after the Voice had said 
"Go!" 

" Thou — wherefore dost thou wait? 
Oh ! gaze not backward, brother mine ; 
The deep love in thy mystic eyne 
Deepening inward, till is made 
A copy of the earth-love shade — 
Oh ! gaze not through the gate ! 
God fiUeth heaven with God's own solitude 

Till all its pavements glow ! 
His Godhead being no more subdued 
By itself, to glories low 

Which seraphs can sustain. 
What if thou in gazing so. 
Should behold but only one 
Attribute, the veil undone — 
And that the one to which we press 
Nearest, for its gentleness — 

Ay ! His love ! 
How the deep ecstatic pain 
Thy being's strength would capture ! 
Without a language for the rapture, 
Without a music strong to come. 

And set th' adoring free ; 
For ever, ever, wouldst thou be 
Amid the general chorus dumb, — 

God-stricken, in seraphic agony ! 

Or, brother, what if on thine eyes 
In vision hare should rise 
The life-fount whence his hand did gather 
With solitary force 
Our immortalities ! — 
Straightway how thine own would wither. 
Falter like a human breath, — 
And shrink into a point like death, 
By gazing on its source !" 

We cannot do better, we think, than attempt to display 
the different characteristics of the genius of the two highly- 
gifted women who form the subject of the present paper, 
by placing them in such harmonious juxtaposition as may 
be most advantageous to both, and convey the clearest syn- 
thetical impression to the reader. 



AND MRS. NORTON. 269 

The prominent characteristics of these two poetesses may 
be designated as the struggles of woman towards happiness, 
and the struggles of a soul towards heaven. The one is op- 
pressed with a sense of injustice, and feels the need of hu- 
man love; the other is troubled with a sense of mortality, 
and aspires to identify herself with ethereal existences. The 
one has a certain tinge of morbid despondency taking the 
tone of complaint and the amplification of private griefs; 
the other too often displays an energetic morbidity on the 
subject of death, together with a certain predilection for 
"terrors." The imagination of Mrs. Norton is chiefly oc- 
cupied with domestic feelings and images, and breathes me- 
lodious plaints or indignations over the desecrations of her 
sex's loveliness; that of Miss Barrett often wanders amidst 
the supernatural darkness of Calvary, sometimes with an- 
guish and tears of blood, sometimes like one who echoes the 
songs of triumphal quires. Both possess not only great men- 
tal energies, but that description of strength which springs 
from a fine nature, and manifests itself in productions which 
evidently originated in genuine impulses of feeling. The 
subjects they both choose appear spontaneous, and not re- 
sulting from study or imitation, though cast into careful 
moulds of art. Both are excellent artists : the one in deal- 
ing with subjects of domestic interest ; the other in designs 
from sacred subjects, poems of religious tendency, or of the 
supernatural world. Mrs. Norton is beautifully clear and 
intelligible in her narrative and course of thought and feel- 
ing ; Miss Barrett has great inventiveness, but not an equal 
power in construction. The one is all womanhood ; the 
other all wings. The one writes from the dictates of a hu- 
man heart in all the eloquence of beauty and individuality ; 
the other like an inspired priestess — not without a most 
truthful heart, but a heart that is devoted to religion, and 
whose individuality is cast upward in the divine afilatus, and 
dissolved and carried oflf in the recipient breath of angelic 
ministrants. 

Some of Mrs. Norton's songs for music are very lovely, 
; and other of her lyrics have the qualities of sweetness and 
pathos to a touching and thrilling degree. One of the do- 
1 mestic poems in the " Dream and other poems," is a strik- 
I ing composition. The personal references in the miscella- 
I neous poems are deep and true, and written with unaffected 



270 MISS E. B. BARRETT, ETC. 

tenderness. She has contributed many prose tales full of 
colour and expression to several of the Annuals ; but these, 
together with her musical talents and editorial labours, are 
much too popularly known and admired to render any fur- 
ther remarks that we could offer upon them at all requisite. 



B ANIM 

AND 

THE IRISH NOVELISTS, 



" Great heart, and bright hnmours, my masters ; with a wit that never linger*, am 
a sorrow that sits with her head nnder one wing." 

Old Comedt. 

" Certes, sir, your painted eloqnence, 
So gay, so fresh, and eke so talkative, 
It doth transcend the wit of Dame Prudfnce 
For to declare your thought or to descrive. 
So gloriously glad language ye contrive." 

Chaucer, 

" Could he dance on the head of him, and think with his heels, then were he 8 
blessed spirit." Old Ireland, 

" Och-, Shane Fadh— Shane Fadh, a cushla machree! you're going to break up th« 
ring — going to lave us, avourneen,for ivver, and we to hear your light foot and sweet 
voice, morning, noon, and night, no more '." Cahletoh. 

The author of the " O'Hara Tales " stands pre-eminent 
among the delineators of Irish character, and quite distinct 
from the mere painters of Irish manners. He goes to the 
very heart and soul of the matter. He is neither the eulo- 
gist nor the vilifier, neither the patronizing apologist, nor the 
caricaturist of his countrymen, but their true dramatic his- 
torian. Fiction, such as his, is truer than any history, be- 
cause it deals not only with facts and their causes, but with 
the springs of motive and action. It not only details cir- 
cumstances, but probes into and discovers the living ele- 
ments on which circumstances operate. His Irishmen are not 
strange, unaccountable creatures, but members of the great 
human family, with a temperament of their own, marking a 
peculiar race, and his Irishwomen are in especial drawn with 
the utmost truth and depth of feeling. He knows well the 
sources of those bitter waters which have converted the im- 



272 BANIM AND THE 

pulsive, generous, simple-minded, humorous, and irascible 
race with whom he has to deal, into lawless ruffians, or un- 
principled knaves. He loves to paint the national charac- 
ter in its genial state, ardent in love, constant in friendship, 
with a ready tear for the mourner, and a ready laugh for the 
reveller, overflowing with gratitude for kindness, with open 
hand and heart, and unsuspicious as a child ; and reversing 
the picture, to show that same character goaded by oppres- 
sion and contemptuous injustice, into a cruel mocking demon 
in human form, or into some reckless, libertine, idle, hope- 
less tattered rascal. The likeness cannot be disputed. The 
description carries internal evidence with it. Whoever has 
been in Ireland remembers illustrations of it, and begins to 
discover the how and the why of things which before puz- 
zled him. Even those who have never been in Ireland, 
cannot have gone through their lives without observing the 
cheerfulness, humour, and gaiety of its natives, even under 
depressing circumstances, their natural politeness, the 
warmth of their gratitude, their ready helpfulness, all evi- 
dences of a character to be moulded into excellent good 
form by love and kindness. The reverse of the picture 
need not be dwelt on. It is the theme of all the world. 
Irish reprobates and Irish criminals are plentiful. Banim 
and some few others can teach why they are so. 

In the small compass of nine pages of Banim's admi-' 
rable story called " Crohoore of the Bill-Hook," there is 
contained what may be called the natural history of " White- 
boyism," and in those pages is comprised the philosophy of 
the whole matter, with its illustrations in human tears and 
drops of blood. In the vivid and exciting description of the 
White-boy outrage on the tithe-proctor, where the remorse- 
less cruelty is rendered more revolting by its accompani- 
ment of the never-absent Irish humour that makes the tor- 
turer comfort his wretched victim before he cuts off his ears, 
with " Don't be the laste unasy in yoursef, a-gra; you may 
be right sartin I'll do the thing nate and handy" — how finely 
does the author claim and obtain impartial justice for the 
perpetrators, at the tribunal of eternal truth, by the few 
words with which he prefaces his dreadful narrative : " The 
legal retribution," says he, " visited on Damien and Ravaillac 
has found its careful registers : nor in this transcript of real 
scenes, shall the illegal violence done to an Irish tithe-proc- 



THE IRISH NOVELISTS. 273 

tor, want true and courageous historians." Who that has 
ever had his soul sickened by even a glance into the cold 
methodical detail of the exquisite tortures, that were each 
day, and day after day, applied to Ravaillac — the pincers, 
the fire, the rack, the screw — while the "Do not drive my 
soul to despair !" shrieked out in vain, except to be recorded 
by the witnessing secretary — every agonized exclamation 
being carefully noted — who does not feel the force of those 
words? Despotic power had transformed these legal and 
highly polished tormentors into devils. Ignorance, wrong, 
and ruin, had converted those illegal and outcast men of im- 
pulse into mocking savages. Individual character and va- 
ried circumstance, acting and re-acting discordantly, these 
make up the mystery of human woe. Rise to a sufficient 
elevation, and the criminals might be seen to change places, 
or all fade into one mass of suffering wanderers in the dark, 
concerning whom horror and hatred would turn into deep 
pity ; and tears and an effort to save take the place of re- 
tribution. 

We have been dwelling on the darker and stronger por- 
traits in Banim's works. As an illustration of the humor- 
ous, we may take " Andy Houlahan," in the same story of 
" Crohoore." There he stands, true to the life. " Tall, 
square, slight, loose, bony," as if he had been put together 
by chance; "looking like a bold but imperfect sketch of a 
big fellow ;" his " skin fitting tight to his high cheek-bones ;" 
his " expression of good humour, foolishness, fidget, and sub- 
tlety ; " his clothes looking as if " they had been tossed on 
with a pitch-fork; " his hat, " that part of every man's cos- 
tume in its shape and adjustment most redolent of charac- 
ter," going through all the varieties of adjustment, from 
being " pushed back to the last holding point of his skull " 
lo being " dragged down into his eyes," according to the 
mood of the wearer ; his long outside coat fallen from his 
shoulders, pinioning his arms and trailing in the dust or mud ; 
the buttons at his knees, collar, and vest unfastened ; his 
stockings " festooning down to his brogues." Now, of this 
Andy Houlahan, it is just what is to be expected that he 
should perpetrate a succession of well-meant blunders, and 
so he does. He is brave to recklessness in real danger, but 
as to witches, ghosts, and fairies, an arrant coward ; the most 
lovinor and faithful creature in the world, yet marring and 

13 



274 BANIM AND THE 

counteracting every effort to serve the friend he loves best in 
the world, and nearly getting him hanged at last; then, 
(after his friend has been saved by other intervention,) pull- 
ing down the gallows, and stamping the coffin to shivers ; 
and concluding by startling all the assembled magistrates 
in grave discussion, by his loud " whoop," when he sees his 
friend made all right and happy at last; for which finishing 
stroke he must give his own excuse, " It's a fashion we have 
in screechin' that a way, when we're glad, or sorry, or a 
thing o' the kind." 

Banim's conception of his subject is equal to his skill in 
the development of character. He has always a definite 
aim and purpose, and always a plot. However elaborately 
he may finish his individual figures, they are always skilfully 
grouped, and all the groups together make an harmonious 
whole. His management of his subject is equally fine. 
He invests it with an interest, humorous, terrible, or pathetic. 
We are sufficiently behind the scenes to feel with and for 
his characters, and to attach due importance to his incidents, 
yet he does not disclose his "mystery" till the proper mo- 
ment. " Crohoore," is an excellent illustration of this. We 
defy any one, unless he resort to the unjustifiable expedient 
of " looking at the end," to divine how all will be explained 
to his heart's ease and thorough satisfaction at last. 

The thrilling interest attached to the history of the 
young priest in "The Nowlans," affords another 'instance 
of the power and passion with which this author works out 
his conceptions. The struggle between nature and con- 
science, unnaturally opposed as they are by the vow of ce- 
libacy, is here rendered more terrible in its effect by the 
youth and the ardent, impetuous character of the priest, 
which fight desperately against his high sense of duty and 
devotion to his faith. The lovely and refined character oi' 
Lettey, her sweet, tender, trustful, artless, self-sacrificincr 
spirit, and her excessive yet trembling love for him, obliterat- 
ing from her consciousness all thought of her own superior 
station and fortune — all this enhances the deadly effort it 
cost them to part for ever, engages our deepest sympathies, 
and carries us along with them in their horror-stricken 
flight together, when that interview which they had meant 
to be their last on earth, has united their fates for ever. 
Then follow the cruel persecution of the world, the vain 



THK IRISH NOVELISTS. 275 

Struggle with its anathema, and the final tragedy — the lone 
waste cabin in the lone field surrounded by the darkness of 
night, by the snow and winter wind ; the door torn Irom its 
hinges and raised on four stones from off the wet floor ; 
upon it the corpse of the beautiful young woman clasping 
th^dead infant to her breast ; the rushlight stuck in a lump 
of yellow clay flickering by their side ; at their feet, the 
young man, kneeling — his face as pale as theirs, " with un- 
winking distended eyes riveted on the lowly bier." 

"The Nowlans " is, perhaps, the finest of Banim's 
works; but they are all more or less stamped with genius. 
We could dwell on many more of them ; they are, however, 
all before the public and well known, and their peculiar cha- 
racteristics are similar to those we have enumerated in this 
short sketch of " Crohoore " and "The Nowlans." 

Lover is a very forcibly effective, and truthful writer of 
Irish novels, and falls into the ranks after Banim- He has 
less passion, but more picturesque vivacity. As a writer and 
composer of songs (not to mention the charming expression 
with which he sings them) Mr. Lover is perhaps still more 
popular, and his ballads have a certain singable beauty in 
them, and a happy occasional fancifulness. His novels, 
however, are the stuff whereof his fame is made, and they 
are highly vital, and of great value in the sense of commen- 
tary on the national character. 

Who ever read Rory O'More from beginning to end, 
without being seized with many a fit of uncontrollable 
laughter, and also shedding some tears? — or who ever began 
to read it, and left off withotit reading to the end ? Genu- 
ine pathos, and as genuine fun — a true love of nature, and 
simple true-heartedness — are all there ; and the dialogues are 
exquisite, and full of Irish humour. 

The writings of William Carleton must not be omitted. 
If Banim may be characterized as the dramatic historian of 
his countrymen, Carleton may with equal truth be styled 
their faithful portrait-painter. He draws from the life. In 
his manly and unaffected introduction to " Traits and Sto- 
ries of the Irish Peasantry," he has given his auto-biography, 
and explained how it is he can so accurately describe, be- 
cause he was himself one of them : — A good reason for his 
knowledge ; but in himself is the power to use it with talent 
and effect. 



976 nANIM AND THE 

The Irish Tales of Mrs. S. C. Hall have character and 
life, tenderness and softness. She has written one or two 
novels ; but the performances she is better known by, are 
her miscellaneous liglit essays or tales, with which the peri- 
odical literature of the day is sown abundantly, and the char- 
acteristic sketches illustrative of her native Ireland, of which 
she published a volume not long ago, in conjunction with her 
husband. Her miscellaneous sketches, in general, are 
graceful, and womanly in the most amiable sense. 

Lever, well known in the popular literature of the day as 
" Harry Lorrequer," writes Irish novels too, and therefore 
is mentioned in this place. He has a large circle of readers, 
and many of them would say they prefer him to any body else ; 
but if you tried to elicit from them one good reason, they 
would have no better answer to give than " Oh ! he's a cap- 
ital fellow!" What the French call material life, is the 
whole life he recognizes ; and that life is a jest, and a very 
loud one, in his philosophy. The sense of beauty and love 
he does not recognize at all, except in our modern condition 
of social animals. To read him is like sitting in the next 
room to an orgie of gentlemen topers, with their noisy gen- 
tility and "hip! hip! hurras!" and the rattling din of plates 
and glasses. In his way, he is a very clever writer, nobody 
can deny ; but he is contracted and conventional, and unre- 
fined in his line of conventionality. His best descriptions 
are of military life. He is most at home in the mess-room. 
He has undoubted humour and a quick talent of invention 
of comic scenes, which generally end in broad farce. He 
does not represent fairly even the social and jovial side of 
men of much refinement, or, if he does, he should not rep- 
resent them as he does, on all sides thus social and jovial. 

" A capital fellow " — is Lorrequer accounted by his 
readers, and that expression we take to be the most compact 
and complete estimate of him. The sort of reader for Harry 
Lorrequer, is one of those right jovial blades who can dismiss 
his six dozen of oysters and a tankard of stout" after the play," 
and then adjourn with some other capital fellows to brandy- 
and-water and a Welsh rabbit, pleasantly relieved by poach- 
ed eggs, and cigars, and a comic song; yet rise the next morn- 
ing without a fraction of headache, without the knowledge 
of a stomach, and go to breakfast with a fox-hunter. 

The present period is certainly destined to display a sin- 



IRISH NOYBLISTS. 277 

gular variety, not only in the classes of literary production, 
but in the different modifications of each class. We think 
the most omniverous reader would be discomposed by the 
contrasts, if for his morning's reading he took alternately a 
chapter from Banira, a chapter from Lady Morgan's " Wild 
Irish Girl," a chapter from Mrs. S. C. Hall's " Irish Tales," 
a high brogue chapter from Lover's " Rory O'More," an 
after-dinner scene from Harry Lorrequer, and concluded by 
going to a wake or a wedding with Carleton. 



ROBERT BROWNING 

AND 

J. W. MARSTON. 



" One midnight dark a Spirit electric came, 
And shot an invisible arrow through the sky !" 
****** 
" A poet hidden in the light of thought." 

" The art of the poet is to separate from the fable whatever doeB not essentially 
belong to it; whatever, in the diiily necessities of real life, and the petty occupations 
to which they give rise, interrupts the progress of important actions." 

A. W. ScHLEGEL. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. 

" Break Phantasy, from thy cave of cloud, 
And spread thy purple wings ! 
Now- all thy figures are allowed,' 
And various shapes of things." 

Bek JoNSOK. 

The spirit of passionate and imaginative poetry is not 
dead among us in the " ignorant present " — it is alive, and of 
great splendour, filling the eyes and ears of those who by na- 
ture and study are fitted to receive such influences. If daz- 
zling lines, passages, and scenes, were asked in proof of this, 
what an array might instantly be selected from the compar- 
atively little known works of Mr. Browning, — Mr. Darley, 
— the ^author of the " Manuscripts of Erdely," — the author 
of " Festus," and several others still less known. While the 
struggle of this spirit to ascend visibly from the denser 
masses around — a struggle understood by so few, interest- 
ing to fewer, believed in by fewer still — while this is going 
on, there is also a struggle of a more practical kind in the 
field of letters, which is well patronized, greatly assisted, 
and expected to be successful — the spirit of reality, or of the 
artistical representation of reality. Such is apparently the 
creed, as it has hitherto been the practice, of Mr. Marston 



R. BROWNING AND J. W MARSTON. 279 

and many others. This is the principle which is thought to 
be the true representative of the tendency of the present age ; 
so much easier to understand than the ideal ; and so sure 
eventually of triumphant success. Believing in this, Mad- 
ame Vestris carpeted and upholstered the stage, and Mr. 
Macready carried the ruinous error to a still greater extent in 
his " gettings up." But this principle is not the true repre- 
sentative of the age ; it is not understood much better than 
the ideal and imaginative, though all mechanical-minded 
men fully believe they can grasp it, — so palpable it seems ; 
and it will not be successful. Hitherto it has always failed. 
It cannot even obtain a temporary success, — for all the spirit 
of railroads, and all the steam. Their success is no prece- 
dent for art. Art is in a false position among them. The 
spirit of the Fine Arts cannot be identical with the material 
forces and improvements of the age, which are progressive 
— the former is not. Its greatness is self-centered, and re- 
volves in its own proper orbit. 

The career of the author of " Paracelsus," extending at 
present over not much more than half the period of Mr. 
Tennyson, presents different features, some of which appear 
more fortunate and some less. His reception was compara- 
tively good ; we may say very good. Several of those peri- 
odicals, in which the critics seem disposed to regard poetry 
of a superior kind as a thing to be respected and studied, 
hailed the appearance of Mr. Robert Browning with all the 
honours which can reasonably be expected to be awarded to 
a new comer, who is moreover alive. In more than one 
quarter the young poet was fairly crowned. The less intel- 
ligent class of critics spoke of him with praise ; guarding 
their expressions with an eye to retreat, if necessary, at any 
future time, made various extracts, and set him to grow. 
The rest did what is usual. Now, this reception was, all 
things considered, very good and promising ; the poet had 
no enemies banded together to hunt and hoot him down, 
and he had admirers among the best class of critics. Here 
was a fine table-land whereon to build a reputation, and to 
make visible to all men those new fabrics of loveliness and 
intellectual glory which were manifestly germinating in his 
brain. Mr. Browning's next production was a tragedy, 
which, " marvellous to relate," he got acted immediately — 
an event quite unprecedented on the modern stage, except 



280 ROBERT BROWNINU, 

with those two or three dramatic authors who have previous- 
ly passed through the customary delays preceding represen- 
tation. It succeeded, as the saying is, but was not very 
attractive, and being printed " as acted," did not advance 
the poet's reputation. After this, Mr. Browning went to 
Italy, where he appears to have felt himself far too happy for 
the work that was before him ; his spiritual existence drink- 
ing in draughts too deep and potent of the divine air, and all 
the intense associations of the scenes in which he dwelt, and 
dreamed, and revelled, to suffer him to apply a steady strength, 
to master his own impulses, and to subdue the throng of ele- 
mentary materials, so as to compress them into one definite 
design, suited to the general understandings of mankind. 

After a silence of four years, the poet published " Sor- 
dello," which has proved, and will inevitably continue toprove, 
the richest puzzle to all lovers of poetry which was ever given 
to the world. Never was extraordinary wealth squandered 
in so extraordinary a manner by any prodigal sen of Apollo. 
Its reception, if not already known to the reader, may be 
guessed without much difficulty ; but the poem has certainly 
never been fairly estimated. The last publications of Mr. 
Browning are in a dramatic form and spirit ; they were 
issued at intervals, and we trust will continue — the series 
bearing the title of " Bells and Pomegranates." The public 
has treated them hitherto, we believe, with less neglect than 
is usual with dramatic productions which have not been sub- 
stantiated to the understanding by stage representation, al- 
though it is still to be feared that the title of the series has 
not induced any anticipative sympathy. 

Mr. Marston's first work was the play of the " Patri- 
cian's Daughter," and was the subject of a second " marvel," 
for this also obtained speedy representation. To this play, 
as to Mr. Browning's " Strafford," Mr. Macready took a sud- 
den fancy — fatal omen of invariable results! Both of these 
works are examples of men of genius going astray, the one 
turning tragedy into a spasmodic skeleton, the other carry- 
ing the appointments of what is technically and degradingly 
termed " a coat-ahd-breeches comedy " into the tragic arena, 
and wounding Art with real-life weapons. The play has had 
some temporary success ; but it will only be temporary. Mr. 
Marston's next work was " Gerald," a poem in a dramatic 
form, illustrative of the old melancholy story of the struggles 



AND J. W. MARSTON. 281 

of Genius with the experiences of the actual world. The 
subject of Mr. Browning's first work, was in some respects 
similar ; but the struggles of" Paracelsus " are always treated 
poetically, while those of" Gerald " have a harsh matter-of- 
fact tone — for such is the principle of " realizing " in art. 

" Paracelsus " is evidently the work of a young poet of 
premature powers — of one who sought to project his iniagi- 
nation beyond the bounds of his future, as well as present, 
experience, and whose intellect had resolved to master all 
the results thus obtained. We say the powers were prema- 
ture, simply because such a design could only be conceived 
by the most vigorous energies of a spirit just issuing forth 
with " blazing wings," too full of strength and too far of 
sight to believe in the ordinary laws and boundaries of mor- 
tality. It is the effort of a mind that wilfully forgets, and 
resolves to set aside its corporeal conditions. Even its pos- 
sible failure is airily alluded to at the outset, and treated in 
the same way, not merely as no sort of reason for hesitating 
to make the attempt to gain " forbidden knowledge," but as 
a result which is solely referable to the Cause of its own 
aspirations and impulses. 

" What though 
It be so .' If indeed the strong desire 
Eclipse the aim in me ? If splendour break 
Upon the outset of my path alone, 
And duskest shade succeed ? What fairer seal 
Shall I require to my authentic mission 
Than this fierce energy ? This instinct striving 
Because its nature is to strive .'' Enticed 
By the security of no broad couise — 
Where error is not, but success is sure. 
Ho-wr know I else such glorious fate my own, 
But in the restless irresistible force 
That works within me .' Is it for human will 
To institute such impulses .' Still less 
To disregard tlieir promptings ? What should 1 
Do, kept among you all ; your loves, your cares, 
Your life — all to be mine : Be sure that God 
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart. 
Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once 
Into the vast and unexplored abyss ! 
What full-grown power informs her from the first, 
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating 
The silent boundless regions of the sky !" 

Paracelsus, pp. 18, 19. 

It should be observed that reference is made exclusively 
to the poet's creation, not to the "Paracelsus " of history. 
The higher destinies of man, which are conceived by the 
" Paracelsus" we are contemplating, as attainable on earth, 
are thus sublimely intimated : — 

13* 



282 nOBERT BROWNING, 

" The wide East, where old Wisdom sprung ; 
The bright South, where she dwelt ; the populous North, 
All are pass'd o'er — it lights on me. 'Tis time 
New hopes should animate the world — new light 
Should dawn from new revealings to a race 
Weigh'd down so long, forgotten so lon^ ; so shall 
The heaven reserv'd tor us at last, receive 
No creatures whom unwonted splendours blind, 
But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze. 
Whose beams not seldom lit their pilgrimage ; 
Not seldom glorified their life below." 

Paracdsus, p. 20. 

A Promethean character pervades the poem throughout ; 
in the main design, as well as the varied aspirations and 
struggles to attain knowledge, and power, and happiness for 
mankind. But at the same time there is an intense craving 
after the forbidden secrets of creation, and eternity, and 
power, which place " Paracelsus" in the same class as 
" Faust," and in close affinity with all those works, the ob- 
ject of which is an attempt to penetrate the mysteries of ex- 
istence — the infinity within us and without us. Need it be 
said, that the result is in all the same ? — and the baffled mag- 
ic — the sublime occult — the impassioned poetry — all display 
the same ashes which were once wings. The form, the 
mode, the impetus and course of thought and emotion, ad- 
mit, however, of certain varieties, and " Paracelsus" is an 
original work. Its aim is of the highest kind ; in full ac- 
cord and harmony with the spirit of the age; and we admit 
that it has been accomplished, in so far as such a design can 
well be ; for since the object of all such abstractions as Par- 
acelsus must necessarily fail, individually and practically, 
the true end obtained is that of refining and elevating others, 
by the contemplation of such efforts, and giving a sort of 
polarity to the vague impulses of mankind towards the lofty 
and the beneficent. It also endeavours to sound the depths 
of existence for hidden treasures of being. 

Living a long life — dreaming a lofty dream — working 
and suffering, Paracelsus now lies dead before us ! Behold 
an epitome of the course he ran ! Paracelsus aspires. He 
has a glorious vision of the discovery of hidden knowledge 
never as yet revealed to man. He believes that if he con- 
stantly seeks it, and works for it, he shall attain it ; and 
that, were it not possible, these " vast longings" would not 
be " sent to direct us." He " stands at first, where all as- 
pire at last," and pursues the ever-fleeting " secret of the 
world," of man and our ultimate destiny. He searches at 



AND /. W. MARSTON. 283 

home and abroad ; but, chief of all, he searches within him- 
self, believing that there is " an inmost centre in us all, 
where truth abides in fulness ;" and that to know, 

" Rather consists in opening out a way 

Whence the imprisoned splendour may dart forth, 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be without." 

Filled with the divine portion of truth, which he mis- 
takes for the whole, Paracelsus pursues his labours, " serene 
amidst the echoes, beams, and glooms," yet struggling on- 
ward with impassioned will, and subduing his life " to the 
one purpose whereto he has ordained it," till at length he 
"attains" — But what? — Imperfect knowledge! He finds 
that knowledge without love is intellect without heart, and a 
bitter, as it must ever be a certain, disappointment. Para- 
celsus looks around him, and renews his labours. 

" This life of mine 
Must be lived out, and a grave thoroughly earned." 

He becomes a miraculous physician— professor of medi- 
cine at Basil ; and his cures, his doctrines, and his fame 
are noised abroad in the world. But he is not satisfied ; he 
feels the poverty of such reputation, when compared with 
what he would do for the human race. Again Paracelsus 
aspires. What his object now is in t^lis part of the poem is 
not so clear ; but knowledge, and love, and disappointed ef- 
forts, and fresh struggles and apprehensions, are all at work, 
while Paracelsus is at the same time full of anguish at the 
persecution which now hunts him from place to place, as 
an impostor and a quack. His feelings often display strong 
signs of over-tasked powers, and impel his mind along the 
borders of delirium and madness. He looks back upon the 
past, where " the heaving sea is black behind ;" and in the 
miseries and horrors of the present, he feels at times that 
" there is a hand groping amid the darkness to catch us." 

The closing scene is near. Paracelsus finally " at- 
tains." And what 1 — Purified feelings, and a clear know- 
ledge of what may, and may not be. He is on the brink of 
the grave, and of eternity ; a sublime fire is before his 
path, a constant music is in his ears, and a melting into 
" bliss for evermore." True to his ruling passion, he pauses 
a moment to speculate on his momentous state — the aw- 



284 ROBERT BROWNINn, 

ful threshold on which he stands — for a last chance of dis- 
covering " some further cause for this peculiar mood;" but 
it " has somehow slipt away " from him. He stands in 
" his naked spirit so majestical," and full, once more, of en- 
nobling hopes, looks forward to the time when man shall 
commence the infancy of a higher state of being. Then, 
with one last sigh over the " waste and wear" of faculties 
"displayed in vain, but born to prosper in some better 
sphere," the old heart-broken philosopher closes his eyes in 
death. His awe-stricken friend, standing mute for hours 
over the pale clay, at length slowly murmurs — 

" And this was Paracelsus !" 

The genius of Mr. Marston has hitherto displayed a mis- 
giving originality — or a fancied originality — self-confident 
at its first launch upon the tide, and midway calling for 
help from the past, and supporting its sinking venture by all 
manner of old associations. He took the bull by the horns, 
and let him go again ; the consequence has been that he has 
only aggravated and exalted the power he intended to tame 
or transfer. He intended to show that the bull was a real 
thing, and the provocation transforms it to a Jupiter. The 
principle on which the " Patrician's Daughter" was writ- 
ten, (a kind of following in the track of the " Lady of Ly- 
ons,") was to prove that reality and the present time consti- 
tuted the best material and medium for modern poetry, es- 
pecially dramatic poetry. Now this very play contains as 
many antiquated words and phrases as any modern drama 
written in direct imitation of the Elizabethan dramatists. 
As an acting tragedy it has failed to take any satisfactory 
hold upon the stage — for ladies with fashionable parasols, 
and gentlemen in grenadiers' caps, are an outrage to tragic 
art, which appeals lo the hearts and businesses of men 
through universal sympathies; and inasmuch as it cannot 
be aided by matter-of-fact costumes, so it may be injured by 
ugliness in that respect, more particularly when it constant- 
ly calls back (instead of stimulating) the imagination, and 
reminds it that all this pretended reality is not ies.\. An ex- 
tract from De Quincy's " Essay on Lnitation in the Fine 
Arts," will make this question more clear : — 

'' The first error of the artist, — consists in stepping beyond his art to seek in 
the resources of another, an increase of imitative resewblance. The second error 
of the artist, — consists in seeking truth (short of the limits of eveiy art) by a sy»- 



AND J. W. MARSTON. 285 

tem of servile copy, which deprives the imitation or the image, of that fictitious 
part which constitutes at once its essence and its character. 

" In every art there must be wiih respect to truth some fiction, and with respect 
to resemblance something incomplete." 

In the delineation of his chief character, moreover, Mr. 
Marston commits the very dangerous error of saying prodi- 
gious things of his hero's abilities, but not showing his 
greatness by his actions. Among other extravagances he 
calls him " the apostle of his age," and shows no shadow of 
justification for the title. 

We have here to mention, chiefly for the sake of repre- 
hension, the numerous reality tragedies of the author of 
" The Shepherd's Well." Some are printed with his name, 
some not ; but they are all of one family. This gentleman 
has attempted to introduce real-life, conmion-place colloquial 
dialogue into tragedy, — not as prose tragedy, but in the 
form of verse. Whatever ability he may display in the con- 
ception of subjects, we certainly think that his method of 
execution defeats the design. The perfectly domestic 
drama should be presented in a perfectly domestic form. 
Rapidity of production is also apt to degenerate into reck- 
less impulse. A tragedy at three sittings appears to be Mr. 
Powell's rate of work. Five mortal acts as a few hours' 
amusement ! But they are not acts. They are interludes 
to display a catastrophe. These productions have the merit 
of one idea ; and sometimes a very fine and striking one it 
would prove, if properly worked out ; but, having reserved 
this idea for the last scene of his last act, the author seems 
to think that any mass of introductory or irrelevant matter, 
may be cut into four parts — and then comes Act the Fifth, 
and the one stinging idea. That he has "stuff" in him of 
a good kind, if fairly worked upon, and with any justice 
done to its own nature, is evident, though it may be doubted 
from these specimens whether he will ever be a dramatist. 
But, in the first place, and in any case, we object to the 
principle of realizing in dramatic composition, however ad- 
mirably the intention were executed. " The Blind Wife," 
the "'wife's Revenge;" "Marguerite;" " Marion," &.c. 
&LC. are all instances of the error, carried to its extreme, 
and with a fairness that brings the question at once to an 
issue. It ought to be added that the " Shepherd's Well " 
is the best of Mr. Powell's productions, and not only has 
fine elements of feeling and purpose in its conception, but 



286 ROBERT BROWNING, 

is executed in a style of more care and poetical refinement 
than any of the rest of his large " young family." It is a 
great pity that six months' labour was not bestowed upon so 
finely conceived a subject. 

That a composition intended for the stage, which was 
the second production of Mr. Browning, should be very dif- 
ferent from an epic or psychological poem, will excite no 
surprise ; but that it should contain so few incidental touches 
of that peculiar genius which he had previously displayed, 
is a curious circumstance to remark. Paracelsus was an 
ebullition of the poet's powers. The tragedy of " Strafford " 
is a remarkable instance of the suppression of them. It was 
a strange mistake, with regard to the tragic principle, which 
needs the highest consummation of poetry and passion, so 
that each shall be either or both ; whereas " Strafford " 
was a piece of passionate action with the bones of poetry. 
It was a maimed thing, all over patches and dashes, with 
the light showing through its ribs, and the wind whistling 
through its arms and legs ; while in its head and echoing in 
its heart, was sung its passion for a king. It was printed 
as " acted." What it might have been originally is impos- 
sible to say, but we have some difficulty in conceiving how 
it could have been put together with so many disjointed 
pieces in the first instance. The number of dashes and 
gaps of omission made its pages often resemble a Cana- 
dian field in winter, after a considerable thoroughfare of 
snow-shoes. It appeared, however, to please Mr. Macready, 
and it was played by him appropriately during several 
nights. 

But it is ever the " trick of genius " to do something 
which we do not expect ; and turning to the series, issued 
under the pretty and most unsatisfactory title of " Bells and 
Pomegranates," we discover Mr. Browning to possess the 
finest dramatic genius. " King Victor and King Charles " 
is a complete tragedy. It appears in the form of two main 
divisions, each of which is also divided into two parts, yet 
presenting one entire and perfectly united drama. It is 
properly a tragedy in four acts, with the interval of about a 
twelvemonth between the second and third. The characters 
are drawn with a fine and masterly hand, and the scenes in 
which they appear are full of nice shades and gradations, 
and subtle casuistries of the passions, and are not only dra- 



AND 3. Vr. MARSTON. 287 

matic in an intellectual sense, but would be so to the feel- 
ing and to the eye, if duly represented. It is another proof, 
among the many already existing, that the unacted dramas in- 
comparably superior to the melo-dramatic plays and farces 
adopted by managers. 

The action in " King Victor and King Charles" is so 
finely intervolved, though so very clear to the understand- 
ing, and its scenes are so thoroughly dependent upon each 
other, even for ordinary effect, that extracts can do no 
justice to its artistic structure. 

The same author's tragedy of the " Return of the 
Druses " is, in conception, still finer. The main requisites 
for a successful acting tragedy are character and passionate 
action — and these the " Druses " possesses in the highest 
degree; the next requisite is the perspicuous distribution of 
the action — and here this tragedy is deficient, but in a way 
that might easily be remedied, and with far less trouble than 
is always taken with the works of Mr. Knowles, or Sir E. 
L. Bulwer, or with any of the "great discoveries" and fail- 
ures of Mr. Macready. The character of Djabal is a mas- 
terpiece, and of the higest order of dramatic portraiture. It 
is at once complicated and clear ; the motives iniervolved 
and conflicting, yet " palpable to feeling as to sight ;" and 
all his actions, their results, and his own end, are perfectly 
in harmony with these premises. Any thing in him that 
puzzles us, is only in the progress of the drama ; for event- 
ually he stands out in the finest relief, as though upon "the 
mountain," to which his dying steps lead on his emanci- 
pated people. 

Of a similar kind in design and structure to " The 
Patrician's Daughter," is the poem of " Gerald," by the 
same author. It is another form of the idea of a man of 
genius struggling with the world of the present time. The 
scenes are laid in such places as Hyde Park, the High Road, 
at Bayswater, &-c., and the language having a strong smack 
of the olden time. The poem may be designated as a nar- 
rative dialogue and reverie, in which a series of emotions 
and thoughts, and a few events, are brought before us. They 
are all very like private experiences poetized, philosophized, 
and moralized upon. It may also be doubted whether the 
author's faculties have attained their maturity, judging by 
the love he has for displaying his good things in Italics, 



288 ROBERT BROWNING, 

evidently showing that he considers the ideas as very new, 
which they frequently are not, though perhaps expressed in 
a novel form. But the gravest fault is of the same kind as 
that in his previous work, viz., the author gives us no proof 
that his hero is a man of genius. Gerald says : — 

" In my solitude, 

While bending o'er the page of bards, to feel 
Their greatness fill my soul, and albeit then 
The lofty meaning I could scarce translate, 
To quiver with an awful, vague delight, 
And find my heart respond, although no sense 
Outran my thought ! What, shall no harvest burst 
From seed like this ?" 

Oerald, p. 11. 

We answer, " very likely not any." If any, then most 
likely a reproduction of the thoughts of others, the seeds of 
which have inspired him. All that he says in proof of an 
impulse and capacity, is in itself only poetical emotion, 
which should not be mistaken (as it always is in youth) for 
poetical genius. Gerald leaves his home feeling a strong 
impulse to do something great in the world. Here at once 
we see the old sad error — a vague aspiration or ambition 
mistaken for an object and a power. A man of genius 
rushes out of his solitude, or takes some extreme step, be- 
cause he is possessed with a ruling passion, — a predomi- 
nating idea, — a conviction that he can accomplish a par- 
ticular thing, and so relieve his breast of the ever-smoulder- 
ing image — his imagination of the ever-haunting thought. 
He does not rush forth with expanded arms to grasp at 
whatever presents itself to his inflamed desires, but to grasp 
his soul's idol. In like manner — to come down to details — 
a man of genius never snatches a pen, and sits down to 
write whatever comes uppermost ; (or if he do so, now and 
then, it is because he is in a morbid state, and will most 
likely burn what he has written ;) but to write down a sudden 
revelation of a definite kind. We think, that towards the 
close of his work Mr. Marston discovered this; in fact, we 
see signs that he did ; but it was too late, and all he could 
do was to make his hero accuse himself of a selfish ambition 
as an excuse for his want of success. 

So much for these heroes ; but that the author of both 
these works is a man of genius, and one of the moving 
spirits of the time, no doubt can exist. Mr. Marston's 
writings are full of thoughtful beauty, of religious aspira- 



AND J. \r. MARSTON, 2S9 

tion, and affectionate tenderness. He has also acquired 
considerable reputation as a Lecturer, and is in othcf 
respects likely to have a prosperous career before him — a 
career which at present he has not commenced in that 
fullness of strength which we anticipate he will shortly 
develope. 

Having spoken of the realizing attempts of Mr. Powell 
with regard to the drama, it will be only justice merely to 
remark, that this is not the case with his other poetical pro- 
ductions. He possesses much talent in lyrical composition, 
and his poems of the affections have great beauty. Many 
of the other pieces are of a very restless and unequal 
description. They breathe too much of death, and a mor- 
bid harping upon religious forms and dogmas. If we were 
to select those which we like best, tliey would be from 
among his smaller poems of a few stanzas each ; and we 
could pick out many sonnets, which are excellent in 
thought, imagery, and harmonious versification. His longer 
poems want design and order — to say nothing of some 
care and consistency. For instance, in his poem entitled 
"A Dream of Arcadi," he thinks proper to see a splendid 
cathedral, to hear a fine organ and anthems, and to delight 
his senses with the fumes of incense, amidst crowds of 
devotees. High-mass in Arcadia ! For the rest, however, 
every one must feel the presence of the spirit of poetry, and 
of religious sensibility : nor can any confusion of time, 
place, form, and of purpose, (or the want of purpose,) pre- 
vent that sympathy which follows even the wildest touch 
i".pon the chords of universal emotion. 

To that somewhat extensive class of readers who are of 
opinion that poetry, so far from being a thing to study, 
should be so plain, that " all who run may read," and who 
take up the works of Mr. Browning with that view, we 
should premise that they might just as well run another 
way. In '• Paracelsus" the difficulties were in the quantity 
and quality of thought; in " Sordello" there is the additional 
difficulty of an impracticable style. In proportion to the depth 
or novelty of a thought, the poet has chosen to render the 
vehicle difficult in which it is conveyed — sometimes by its 
erudite elaboration of parenthesis within parenthesis, and 
question upon query — sometimes by its levity, jaunting indif- 
ference, and apparent contempt of every thing — sometimes it 



290 ROBERT BROWNING, 

has an interminable period, or one the right end of which 
you cannot find ; a knotted serpent, which either has no dis- 
coverable tail, or has several, the ends of which are in the 
mouths of other serpents, or else flanking in the air — some- 
times it has a series of the shortest possible periods, viz. of 
one word, or of two or three words. And amidst all this 
there is at frequent intervals a dark hailstone shower of 
proper names — names of men and women, and places, and 
idealities, with which only one general reader in about 
twenty thousand can be expected to be familiar, and with 
the whole of which the style of the poet seems courteously 
to assume that all his readers are upon the most familiar 
terms possible. Under these fcircumstances it can be no 
wonder that such of the miscellaneous public as take up a 
poem by way of a little relaxation, shrunk back in hope 
less dismay ; nor that the more numerous class of daily and 
weekly critics, whose judgments are, from the very nature 
of their position, compelled in most cases to be as hasty as 
their hands, which " write against time," should have been 
glad to dismiss " Sordello" in an angry paragraph. In a 
few instances the critics appeared to have read a portion of 
it; in the great majority of instances it was not read at all, 
which fact was evident in the notice, and in several in- 
stances was boldly declared by the irate critic as a task be- 
yond his sublunary powers. And this no doubt was true.- 

" Who will, may hear Bordello's story told : 
His story ?" 

The author is bewitched at the very outset with an ina- 
bility to " get on witii his story ;" and he never recovers 
this bad beginning. The historical ground-plan of the 
work is laid down after a most bewildering fashion : — 

So Guelfs rebuilt 
Their houses ; no) a drop of blood was spilt 
When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet 
Buccio Virtu ; God's wafer, and the street 
Is narrow ! Tutti Santi, thinli, a-swarm 
With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm. 
This could not last. Off Salinguerra went 
To Padua, Podesta," &c. 

Sordello, p. 7. 

Adding to the vague or conflicting historical accounts 
whatever fictions were agreeable to his fancy, the poet has 
thus successfully succeeded in bewildering himself and his 



AND J. rr. MARSTON. 5^91 

readers, amidst tlie elaborate webs of all manner of real and 
ideal events and biographies. Whether to the purpose of 
his psychologically digressive narrative, or merely as an as- 
sociation suggested (to himself) by the last remark he has 
made, he never lets you off. Speaking of Adelaide, and the 
Kaiser's gold, and Monk Hilary, who is on his knees — 

" Now, sworn to kneel and pray till God shall please 
Exact a punishment for many things 
You know, and some you, never knew ; which brings 
To memory, Azzo's sister Beatrix 
And Richard's Giglia are my Alberic's 
And Ecelin's betrothed ; the Count himself 
Must get my Palma : Ghibellin and Guelf 
Mean to embrace each other. So began 
Romano's missive to his fighting-maii 
Taurello on the Tuscan's death, away 
With Friedrich sworn to sail from Naples' bay 
Next month for Syria." 

Sordello, p. 81. 

Intending to say several things in token of admiration, 
amidst all the off-hand severities of contemporaries that 
have been vented upon " Sordello," it nevertheless seemed 
right to display some of the heaviest faults of the poem at 
the outset. Having done this unsparingly, the far more 
pleasant, even though the far more arduous task remains. 
The following are offered as opinions and impressions of the 
work, regarding it as a whole : — 

The poem of " Sordello" is an attempt to carry out the 
impossible design in which the author's previous hero, 
" Paracelsus," had so admirably failed. It is as though the 
poet, having created a giant, whose inevitable fall in the at- 
tempt to scale the heavens had been so fully explained, was 
resolved himself to follow in the same track with all the ex- 
perience and power thus derived ; and, moreover, with the 
consciousness of being the real and vital essence which had 
called that idealism into existence, and less likely, therefore, 
to " go off" into fine air, not being amenable to the same 
laws. Sordello takes up the asbestos lamp from the inmost 
chamber of the tomb of Paracelsus, and issues forth with it 
into the world, being already far on the way towards the 
outlet which leads to other worlds, or states of being, and 
perhaps to the borders of infinity. Paracelsus, while dying, 
came to the conviction that men were already beginning " to 
pass their nature's bounds ;" that a fine instinct guided them 
beyond the power of mere knowledge or experience, and 
that they were — 



29S ROBBRT BROWNING, 



• " all ambitious, upwards tending, 



Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun, 
But dream of liim and guess where he may be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him." 

He had, moreover, a sentient perception, " beyond the 
comprehension of our narrow thought, but somehow felt and 
known in every shift and change of the spirit within — of 
what God is, of what we are, and what life is." Now, we 
should reply to Paracelsus, and to all who, like him, have 
suffered their imaginative sensibilities to reason them into 
such notions, that they deceive themselves, although the truth 
is in them. Full, however, of this sublime deception, Sor- 
dello tunes his harp, and works through all the complicated 
chords and mazes of harmony with indefatigable zeal, from 
the first note to the end. In the last book of " Sordello" 
we find him almost using the same expressions as in the 
last book of " Paracelsus." Here we learn that his truth — 

" Lighted his old life's every shift and change, 
Effort with counter-effort ; nor the range 
Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked 
Some other — which of these could he suspect 
Prying into them by the sudden blaze .■' 
The real way seemed made up of all the ways — 
Mood after mood of the one mind in him ; 
Tokens of the existence, bright or dim. 
Of a transcendent all-embracing sense 
Demanding only outward influence, 
A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul, 
Power to uplift his power," &c. 

Sordello, pp. 217, 218. 

Exactly so : he only wants that very thing which has 
been denied to mortality since the beginning of things. 
Despairing of this, and doubting whether any external pow- 
er in nature be adequate to forward his desire, Sordello 
finally moots the question of whether he may be ordained a 
prouder fate — " a law to his own sphere ?" Sordello dies, 
and the whole amount of his transcendental discoveries may 
be summed up in the poet's question — 

" What has Sordello' found.'" 

To which no reply is given. 

Such is the most simplified account the present student 
can offer of the main object of the poem of" Sordello," 
carved out from the confused "story," and broken, mazy, 
dancing sort of narrative no-outline, which has occasioned 
so much trouble, if not despair, to his most patient and 



AND J. W. MARSTON. 293 

pains-taking admirers. Some have thought that the gene- 
ral purport of the poem was to show that mere material 
things and matters ot" fact were a mistaken object of life, 
only leading to disappointment and sorrow; and that in the 
ideal world alone, true contentment, satisfaction, and hap- 
piness were to be found ; others have contended, on the 
contrary, that it is intended to display the impossibility of 
attaining to a knowledge of the essences of things, that a 
life passed amidst idealisms is one of inutility and sorrow, 
and that the true object of man should be to discover and 
attain the best realities. But a third view suggests itself. 
It is probable that Sordello is not devoted to either of the 
above purposes exclusively, but comprising both, displays 
the hopes and the despairs, the value and the inutility of 
both, when followed with the devotion of the whole being. 
The selection is left to the reader's individual nature, in 
such proportions as may accord with that nature. 

As to the poetry of" Sordello," apart from all these dis- 
quisitions, we think it abounds with beauties. We should 
offer as one instance (it cannot be extracted on account of 
its length) the matchless description of the poetical mind of 
the noblest order, as typified in Sordello, from the bottom of 
page 20 to the top of page 25. Of the childhood of Sor- 
dello, a beautiful description is given, — at pp. 26-23. 

The complex working of the youthful mind of the poet 
is illustrated in a very happy manner : 

" Thus thrall reached thrall ; 
He o'er-festooning every interval 
As the adventurous spider, making light 
Of distance, shoots lier threads from depth to height, 
From barbican to battlement ; so flung 
Fantasies forth, and in their centre swung 
Our architect." 

Sordello, p. 29. 

'" At page 69, there are several passages highly illustra- 
tive of some of our previous remarks on the philosophy of 
"Sordello:" but the simple matter-of-fact beauty of the fol- 
lowing must be apparent to the reader : 

" In Mantua-territory half is slougli, 

Half pine-tree forest ; maples, scailet-oaks 
1 Breed o'er the river beds ; even Mincio chokes 

With sand the sunmier through ; but 'tis morass 

In winter up to Mantua walls." 
I * Sordello, p. 17. 

1 The whole of page 39, might be quoted for its pastoral 
iloveliness. 



294 ROBERT BR0WNlN6f, 

Containing, as it does, so many passages of the finest 
poetry, no manner of doubt can exist but that " Sordello" 
has been hitherto treated with great injustice. It has been 
condemned in terms that would lead any one to suppose 
there was nothing intelligible throughout the whole poem. 
We have shown its defects in detail, and we have also 
shown that it has some of the highest beauties. The style, 
the manner, the broken measure, the recondite form ; these 
have constituted still greater difficulties than even the re- 
condite matter of which it treats — though the latter only 
were quite enough to " settle" or " unsettle" an ordinary 
reader. 

But how speak of the poem synthetically — how review it 
as a whole? In what terms shall we endeavour to express 
the sum of our impressions of thousands of verses poured 
forth, as Sordello says," by a mad impulse nothing justified, 
short of Apollo's presence V In sobriety of language it is 
not to be done, save most unfittingly. In what fine rapture, 
then, shall we seek to lose our mere critical faculties, and 
resign ourselves to the swift and wayward current of the 
verse; now basking in its brilliancy, now merged in its 
profound shadows, at one time whirled in a vortex, and the 
next moment cast upon some vast shelving strand, glisten- 
ing all over with flints, and diamonds, and broken shells, 
where strange amphibious creatures crawl, and stare, or 
wink, while the song of Sordello passes over our prostrate 
head, and we have to scramble up and stagger after the im- 
mortal quire, vainly catching at the torn and cast-off" seg- 
ments of their flickering skirts'? We hurry on in fond yet 
vain pursuit, when suddenly a Guelf and Ghibellin appear 
before us, each with an enormous urn of antique mould, 
which they invert above our tingling cranium, and instantly 
we are half extinguished and quite overwhelmed by a dark 
shower of notes and memoranda from Tiraboschi, Nostrada- 
mus, the Latin treatise of Dante, the Chronicle of Rolan- 
din, the Comments on the sixth Canto of the Purgalorio, by 
Benvenuto d'Imola, and all the most recondite hints from 
the most learned and minute biographical lexicographers of 
the old Italian periods. 

The poem of "Sordello" is a beautiful globe, which, 
rolling on its way to its fit place among the sister spheres, 
met with some accident which gave it such a jar that a niul- 



AND J. Vr. MARSTON. 295 

litude of things half slipt into each other's places. It is a 
modern hieroglyphic, and should be carved on stone for the 
use of schools and colleges. Professors of poetry should 
decipher and comment upon a few lines every morning be- 
fore breakfast, and young students should beg rowwf/ upon it. 
It is a fine menial exercise, whatever may be said or thought 
to the contrary. Here and there may be found passages 
equal to the finest things that were ever written, and are not 
more difficult to the understanding than those same finest 
things. It is also full of passages apparently constructed 
with a view to make the general reader rage and foam, if 
ever a general reader should push forth his adventurous boat 
out of sight of the shore of the first page — and out of sight 
it will surely appear to him before he has doubled the storm- 
rejoicing cape of page four. To some it will appear to be a 
work addressed to the perception of a seventh sense, or of a 
class of faculties which we do not at present know that we 
possess — if we really do possess. To others it will seem to 
be a work written in the moon by the only sane individual of 
that sphere, viz., the man of that ilk ; or a work written by 
a poet somewhere in the earth, by the light of a remote sun 
whose rays are unrevealed to other eyes. To some the most 
vexatious part of it will be the countless multitude of little 
abrupt snatches of questions, snaps of answers, and inscruta- 
ble exclamations, chirping around from every branch of a 
wilderness or a jungle of glimmering mysteries. To others 
the continual consciousness of the reader's presence will 
most annoy, because it destroys the ideal life, and reminds 
him of something far less agreeable — himself, and his dis- 
tracting problem ! The flowing familiar style sometimes 
reminds us of Shelley's " Julian and Maddalo," with a touch 
of Keat's " Endymion," broken up into numerous pit-falls, 
whether mines of thought or quirks of fancy ; but there are 
also other occasions when it becomes spiral, and of sustained 
inspiration, not unlike certain parts of the "Prometheus 
Unbound " put into rhyme ; yet is it no imitation of any 
other poet. Certain portions also remind us of the sugges- 
tive, voluble, disconnected, philosophical jargon of Shak- 
speare's fools, and with all the meaning which they often 
h:ive for those who can find it. The poem is thick-sown 
throughout with suggestions and glances of history and 
biography, of dark plots, tapestried chambers, eyes behind 



296 R. BROWNINO AN» J. \V MARSTON. 

the arras, clapping doors, dreadful galleries, and deeds in 
the dark, over which there suddenly bursts a light from on 
high, and looking up you find a starry shower, as from some 
remote rocket, descending in silent brilliancy upon the 
dazzled page. Each book is full of gems set in puzzles. It 
is like what the most romantic admirers of Goeihe insist 
upon " making out" that he intended in his simplest fables. 
It is the poetical portion of three epics, shaken together in 
a sack and emptied over the hand of the intoxicated reader. 
It is a perfect storehouse of Italian scenery and exotic fruits, 
plants, and flowers ; so much so, that by the force of con- 
trast it brings to mind the half-dozen flowers and pastoral 
common-places in collections of " Beauties of English 
Poets," till the recollection of the sing-song repetitions 
makes one almost shout with laughter. It is pure Italian in 
all its materials. There is not one drop of British ink in the 
whole composition. Nay, there is no ink in it, for it is all 
written in Tuscan grape juice, embrowned by the sun. It 
abounds in things addressed to a second sight, and we are 
often required to see double in order to apprehend its mean- 
ing. The poet may be considered the Columbus of an im- 
possible discovery. It is a promised land, spotted all over 
with disappointments, and yet most truly a land of promise, 
if ever so rich and rare a chaos can be developed into form 
and order by revision, and its southern fulness of tumultuous 
heart and scattered vineyards be ever reduced to given pro- 
portion, and wrought into a shape that will fit the average 
mental vision and harmonize with the more equable 
pulsations of niankind. 



SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 



" Pitch thy project high ! 

Sink not in spirit. Who aimeth at the sky 
Shoots higher much than if he meant a tree. 
Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting where, 
And when, and how, the business may be done." 

George Herbert. 

B " whom all the graces taught to please, 

Mixed mirth with morals, eloquence with ease. 
His genius social, as his judgment clear ; 
When frolic, prudent ; smiling when severe. 
Secure each temper and each taste to hit, 
His was the curious happiness of wit." 

Mallet. 

It should be remembered to the honour of Sir E. L. 
Buhver, that althougli born to an independence and to the 
prospect of a fortune, and inheriting by accident of birth an 
advantageous position in society, he has yet cuhivated his 
talent with the most unremitting assiduity, equal to that of 
any " poore scholar," and has not suffered his " natural gifts" 
to be smothered by indolence or the pleasures of the world. 
He is one of the most prolific authors of our time; and his 
various accomplishments, habits of research, and extraor- 
dinary industry, no less than his genius, well entitle him to 
the rank he holds as one of the most successful, in that 
branch of literature in which he eminently excels. We 
must not be dazzled by his versatility ; we entertain no doubts 
about his real excellence, and shall endeavour to fix his true 
and definite position. 

Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer is the youngest son of General 
Buhver, of Heydon Hall, in the county of Norfolk, and of 
Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Henry Warburton Lyt- 
lon, Esq., of Knebworth Park, Herts, to the possession of 
which estate he has just succeeded ; and is connected on 
Doth sides of the house, with many noble and ancient families. 

14 



299 SIR EDTfAHU LTTTON BCLWKIt, 

He sat in parliament at an early age for the borough of St. 
Ives, and subsequently for the city of Lincoln. His parlia- 
mentary career was highly creditable, and in one respect, in 
especial, has left an honourable testimonial to his exertions; 
we allude to the bill for the protection of dramatic copyright, 
which he brought in and carried. He distinguished him- 
self at the same time as an able political writer. As a 
speaker, he had won the respect of the House, though his 
voice is weak, his manner somewhat hesitating, and liis 
style more florid than accords with the taste of that assem- 
bly. His train of argument surmounted these disadvantages, 
and, what was more diflicult still, induced honourable mem- 
bers to overlook a certain appearance of fastidious nicety in 
dress, which by no means accords with their notions in 
general. He was made a baronet ; the date and occasion 
of which event we forget. His political labours interfered 
not in the least with his literary career, to the progress of 
which we now turn. 

The development of his literary taste is ascribed to the 
influence of his mother, to whose charge he was early con- 
signed by his father's death. The "Percy's lleliques," 
was a favourite book of his childhood, and he wrote some 
ballads in imitation, when only five or six years old. He 
was never sent to any public school, but graduated at Cam- 
bridge. He, however, found for himself a kind of educa- 
tion, — which was probably of more importance to the devel- 
opment of genius than any he received in the University, — 
by wandering over the greater part of England and Scotland 
on foot during the long vacation, and afterwards makinu^ a 
similar tour of France on horseback. He began to publish 
when only two or three and twenty, at first in verse ; next 
anonymously a novel now forgotten, entitled " Falkland." 
It hence appears that his early attempts were failures. His 
first successful work was " Pelham," and this established 
his reputation as a clever novelist. It was rapidly followed 
by " The Disowned," by " Devereux ;" and then by " Paul 
Clifford," which stamped him as a man of genius. " Eugene 
Aram" well sustarfied the high reputation thus gained. 

There was a considerable interval between these two 
fine works last named, and the other novels and romances 
of their author, in which he undertook the editorship of the 
" New Monthly Magazine.'' His own papers, of which he 



81R EDTTARD LYTTON BULWBR. 299 

wrote many, were various in subject ; sometimes political, 
sometimes literary criticism. A series entitled " The 
Conversations of an Ambitious Student" was in general 
devoted to abstract speculation. The best of these were af- 
terwards re-published under the title of " the Student." 
The germ of many of the thoughts embodied and developed 
in these papers belongs to Hazlitt ; but the germ has power 
and life sufficient to bear the branching stems and foliaore 
with which it was elaborated by Bulvver, and in a manner that 
was often worthy of it. If the saying attributed to Sir Ly tton 
Bulvver concerning his editorship is true, it belongs to that 
" dandiacal " portion of him, which disagreeably interferes 
with one's confidence in his sincerity ; for if he said he be- 
came an Editor "to show that a gentleman might occupy 
such a position," it must simply be set down to the same 
Beau-Brummel idiosyncracy which makes him seriously 
careful of the cut of his coat, and the fashion of his waist- 
coat. But it was only a " flourish of the qiieue," whoever 
said it. The motive was more worthy; and if a proof were 
wanting, the papers of the " Student" might be referred to, 
in which the aim is always high and pure. " Ergland and 
the English," was more the work of the man of the world, 
and the member of Parliament, superadded to the thinker. 
No doubt it contains some exaggerations, but it is correct in 
the main, and is an admirably applied and much required 
dose for our overweening conceit of our national prejudices 
and pride. It might have been entitled " An Exposition of 
the Influences of Aristocracy." 

A return to the region of fiction was perhaps accelerated 
by a tour on the Continent. Passing over the " Pilgrims of 
the Rhine," a piece of prettiness in literature beautifully 
illustrated, — a work which, to use appropriate language, a 
perfect gentleman might permit himself to write for a thou- 
sand pounds — we see Sir Lytton Bulwer in his own element 
again upon the publication of his " Last Days of Pompeii;" 
followed by " Rienzi," and, at intervals wonderfully short, 
by "Ernest Maltravers," " Alice," " Night and Morning," 
" Zanoni," and " The Last of the Barons." 

Had the author of these works — giving evidence of a 
range and variety of intellect, invention, and genius, suffi- 
cient to satisfy a high ambition — attempted no other walk 
of genius, he would have stood above and beyond the analy- 
tical portion of criticism, and «ommanded its far more wor- 



300 SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 

thy and genial office of synthetical appreciation of excel- 
lence. But he has aimed at the fame of a poet, and a dra- 
matist, besides. Those who are used to think of Sir Lytton 
Bulwer as a uniformly successful author ; a sort of magician 
under whose wand paper will always turn into gold, do not 
know that several already forgotten poems have been put 
forth by him since his acquirement of popularity, the very 
names of which sound strange. " Ismael, an Oriental Tale," 
" Leila, or the Siege of Granada,'' " The Siamese Twins," 
have gone into forgetfulness, and " Eva and other poems 
and tales," are not destined to a long life. Then there 
have been patriotic songs, and odes, in which there was a 
curious mixture of the roast-beef of Old England style, with 
an attempt at imaginative impulse and intensity of meaning, 
depending chiefly for high personifications and abstract qual- 
ities upon the use of capital letters. Moreover, there was a 
tragedy of " Cromwell " which is said to have been re- 
written, and its design and character totally changed while 
it was going through the press : and finally, after it was 
printed, it was suppressed. " The public was not worthy of 
it," — we heard this intimated. But there were some {ew 
intellects alive who were; and they could not obtain it. 
Besides, the public has many good things of which it is not 
worthy, as a mass; and yet, here and there, the right sort 
of man always picks up the right sort of book to his think- 
ing. 

That there are great elements of popular success, and a 
mastery of the worldly side of it, in Sir Lytton Bulwer, is 
undoubted : nor would it in the least surprise us if he became 
a peer of the realm, sometime within the next ten years ; 
nevertheless there are several other things which he cannot 
accomplish. 

The known dramatic works of Sir Lytton Bulwer con- 
sist of " The Dutchess de la Valliere," " The Lady of Ly- 
ons," " Richelieu," "The Sea Captain," and " Money," 
all brought out on the stage by Mr. Macready. The first 
was deservedly a failure. Of the others, one only retains a 
share of popularity, but its share is a large one. "The 
Lady of Lyons" is a decided favourite with the public. It 
is usual to place its author among the first of modern drama- 
tists, which he decidedly isiiot, as well as among the first of 
our novelists, which he assuredly is, of whatever period. 

The charm of the " Lady of Lyons " results from the in- 



SIR EDWARD I.yYtON BULWER. 301 

terest of the plot, the clear and often pathetic working of 
the story, t'le easy flow of the dialogue, the worldly morali- 
ty, and the reality of the action, just sufficiently clothed in 
an atmosphere of poetry to take it out of the mere prose of 
existence, without calling upon the imagination for any ef- 
fort to comprehend it. All this, united with every advantage 
that scenic effect and excellent acting could give, established 
the "Lady of Lyons'' in a popularity which it has always 
retained. But this alone is not the meed of a great drama- 
tist. The plot of the play in question will not bear exam- 
ination by any high standard. A heart is treacherously 
won; then, when after the cruel conflict with its own just 
indignation, it is ready to forgive all and continue true to 
its love, it is deserted with cruelty as great as the former 
treachery, all because a self-loving notion of" honour " de- 
mands the sacrifice. The old false preference of the shadow 
for the substance 1 Then, at last, when honour is satisfied, 
all is right. It is made right by the lover having been to 
battle, and " fought away " and obtained rank and property. 
In the last scene he literally purchases the lady — the price 
passing before her very face. This is fostering our worst 
faults; exciting sympathy for the errors that are among the 
most prolific sources of" the weariness, the fever, and the 
fret " of our life. 

" Money " had a better purpose, was more clever and 
witty, and was superior in its structure ; but while the power 
of money, and all its undue influence in the world, was ex- 
cellently displayed, the ostensible and popular moral ten- 
dency of the play was to encourage the acquisition as a 
legitimate and honourable means for attaining objects of all 
kinds. — a triumph of the purse over every thought and feel- 
ing. The author shows his contempt for this condition of 
the world ; but only meets it upon its own ground, instead 
of taking a higher. It was very successful at first, but is 
now seldom acted. " Richelieu" had also a " run" on its 
first appearance ; but has never since been represented. 

The character of Sir Lytton Bulwer's mind is analyti- 
cal, rather than impulsive; elaborate and circuitous, rather 
than concentrating and direct; fanciful, rather than imagin- 
ative ; refining and finishing, rather than simple and power- 
ful ; animated and vivid, rather than passionate and fiery. 
He constructs upon system, rather than upon sensation; and 



302 SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWKR. 

works by his model, and with little help from instinct. 
His strongest faith is in the head, not in the heart; and for 
these reasons he is not a great dramatist. Nor can all the 
labour and skill in the world make him one. But he is phi- 
losophical and artistical, and is pretty sure to display both 
intellect and skill in whatever he undertakes. 

Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer is a great novelist ; his 
name will rank among the masters in the art, and his works 
will live together with theirs. It is sufficient to mention the 
names of such compositions as " Paul Clifford," "Eugene 
Aram," "Night and Morning," "Ernest Maltravers," — 
with its seqnel of" Alice" — and " Zanoni," to feel fearless 
in making this assertion. The variety and originality dis- 
played in these fine works; the invention; the practical 
knowledge, and clever working of character ; the fine art 
in the management of the plot ; the elegance of the style ; 
the power over the feelings in deep pathos; all these quali- 
ties combine to place their author in the highest rank of 
this department of literature. 

In calling to mind the list of Bulwer's novels, those we 
have mentioned occurred first as masterpieces, but others 
remain behind to which other tastes may give the preference. 
" Pelham has never been a favourite with us, notwithstand- 
ing its decided superiority to its contemporary " fashionable 
novels." We cannot relish philosophy or abstract specula- 
tion (and we grant these in "Pelham") from the same 
mouth which discusses the fopperies of the toilette, and how 
to make a pair of trousers ! " A fine gentleman " is not to 
our taste, and there is quite enough worldly morality in the 
actual world without putting it down in a book, as a good 
thing worth repeating. " The Last Days of Pompeii," wove 
into a story of deep interest and beauty the memories of 
the classic times; and the character of Nydia, the blind 
girl, will last as long as our language endures. " Rienzi " 
is, perhaps, the least marked by genius of any of its author's 
later works of fiction. 

Among those first enumerated, " Eugene Aram" is dis- 
tinguished for the development of a great and subtle truth. 
In the dreadful crime into which the benevolent and gifted 
scholar is betrayed at the very moment when he is full of 
ardour for knowledge and virtue, small cavillers are apt to 
ask, could a benevolent or virtuous naturo act thus ? — how 



SIR BDWAHD LYTTON BCLWKB, 303 

can it be natural? We consider that the revelations of 
genius here displayed may fairly be said to have recorded a 
consciousness that in the moral as well as the physical 
frame, " we are fearfully and wonderfully made ;" that when 
the instincts and the passions are over-mastered by the intel- 
lect, and man rests proudly on his boasted reason alone, he 
may work strange deeds before " high Heaven ;'' that he 
must beware of the casuistries of his brain, no less than the 
wild workings of his heart, and that tlie affections and pas- 
sions are the grand purifiers, the master movers, the voice 
of God in the soul, regulating the speculative, daring reason, 
and controlling as well as impelling action. This is to write 
greatly ; to write philosophy and history, the physiology of 
sensation, and aggregate and individual truth. 

In " Ernest Maltravers *' is portrayed the training of 
genius to the business of life ; a hard task, and accomplished 
in a truly philosophical spirit. But as examples of excel- 
lence in his art, as well as of variety in its manifestation, 
we would especially dwell on " Paul Clifford," "Night and 
Morning," and " Zanoni." 

" Paul Clifford" is of the same class as the " Beggars' 
Opera," and worthy to rank with it. While its hero is a 
highwayman, and the lowest characters are introduced in it, 
who have an appropriate dialect, there is nothing in it that 
could for a moment shock any one of real delicacy, and 
there is a tinge of the ideal wrought into the very texture of 
most of these men which renders them interesting to the 
imagination, as their good feeling and bonhommie, with the 
total absence of any thing brutal or gross, reconciles them 
to the mind, and obtains a hold upon the sympathies. But 
besides being individualized, as well as the represensatives 
of classes, several of them are also latent satires upon cer- 
tain known men of our time. Some of these are admirable, 
but more especially Old Bags, Fighting Attie, and Peter 
Macgrawler. Long Ned and Augustus Tomlinson are ex- 
quisite. One of the finest scenes — that of the trial, where 
the judGre is the father of the criminal, is taken from Mrs. 
Inchbald. With this exception, the work in its various parts, 
and as a whole, is a fine original. The author does not 
mil'e his hero admired for any one bad quality, but for na- 
turally high qualities independent of the worst circumstan- 
ces. It is a skilful work of art, and its moral tendency is 



304 SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 

noble, healthy, and full of exhortations to the manful strug- 
gle after good. 

The character of Philip Beaufort in "Night and Morn- 
ing," is a fine conception, and as finely portrayed from the 
moment that he is first shewn a proud and prrrpered bey, 
imperious in his strength and beauty, onwards through the 
bitter trials of his " night," till, by the energy of his will, al- 
ways kept up to the mark by the intensity ci his affections, 
he works his own way to clear " morning." His bcyhcod 
and youth are carried forward en a swelling tide of paesien, 
wl.ich is sustained to the clrse of the work, and leaves the 
mind elevated by its ccnterrplaticn. There is great variety 
of character in the bock : the rapid sketch of the father of 
Philip, and the exquisitely finished portrait of the mother, 
most pathetic in the dignity of her grief ; the spoilt, gentle, 
selfish, idolized brother, icr whom the prcud I hilip vcrks 
like a menial to be rewarded by ingratitude; the worldly 
uncle in high life, and the respectable uncle in the shcp- 
ccracy ; all are excellently drfiwn, but the interest is centred 
in the principal character. The stcry is equally well man- 
aged. The plot is complicated, yet clearly worked out ; the 
incidents flow much less from cutward circumstance than 
from the strong passions and proud will of the hero, by which 
he casts away over and over again the aid that would have 
saved him, rushes into danger and disaster, but at length 
works out his own regeneration, chastened and purified. 
The interest never flags ; and those who can get through 
these three volumes with dry eyes, must be made of hard 
materials. 

" Zanoni" is the most harmonious as a work of art, the 
most imaginative, and the purest and highest in moral pur- 
pose of any of the works of Bulwer. A certain peculiarity 
of style has laid it open to the charge of imitation, and many 
of the ideas and sentiments gathered from Plato, from 
Schiller, Richter, and Gotthe, have induced superficial 
readers to term it a compilation. Sir Lytton Bulwer has 
been heard to declare his opinion that it was quite fair to 
take any thing from an older author — if you could improve 
it. This opens a most dangerous door to human vanity, as 
it would excuse any one to himself, for taking any thing. — 
Our author must not therefore be surprised if this notion 
has occasionally laid him open to vexatious remarks from 



SIR EDWARD LTTTON BULWER. 305 

half-seeing censurers. Notwithstanding any of its oblio-a- 
tions, " Zanoni " is a truly original work ; a finished design ; 
embodying a great principle, and pervaded by one leadinor 
idea. In the I'able of " Zanoni " is depicted the triumph of 
the sympathetic over the selfish nature ; both these terms 
being understood in their largest sense. Under the selfish, 
being comprised the pleasures of the intellect, the clear light 
of science, the love of the beautiful, the worship of art; — 
under the sympathetic, love in its most devoted and spiritual 
meaning, love losing the sense of self, stronger than life and 
death, rendering sacrifice easy, hallowing sorrow, endowing 
the soul with courage and faith. In order to bring out the 
principle in the strongest manner some supernatural ma- 
chinery is employed, and the hero is supposed to possess the 
knowledge of ages and the secret of immortality. Love is 
also represented as the means by which the mind grasps the 
beneficent order and harmony of the Universe, in which 
Death is not an exception, but an integral part, when viewed 
in connection with Eternity. This truth may be attained 
also by pure reason, but the philosophical author has chosen 
to ascribe it to the intuitive teaching of pure passion. In 
like manner, Tennyson, in his fine poem of " Love and 
Death," makes Love "pierce and cleave" the gloom in his 
address to Death : — 

"Thou art the shadow of life, and ag the tree 
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath. 
So in the light of great eternity 
Life eminent creates the shade of death ; 
The shadow passetli when the tree shall fall, 
But I shall reign for ever over all." 

Li the course of the story there are many valuable secon- 
dary suggestions and ideas. The new creation which opens 
to the eyes of those who are awakened to the grandeur and 
mystery of things, and seek a higher life and knowledge, is 
beautifully shadowed forth in the floating forms of light that 
eeera to fill the air when the young aspirant, Glyndon, first 
inhales the elixir of life ; while the dread of " the world," that 
common world which has always followed with its persecution 
and its scorn the best and the noblest, the strikers out of new 
paths, the pioneers and heralds of progression, this nameless 
dread is embodied with singular power in the " Dweller of 
the Threshold." There is more still implied in this haunter 
of " first steps." Every new birth is ushered in with a pang 

14* 



306 SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 

— every new idea enlarges the capacity for pain as well as 
for pleasure, and who ever felt the inspiration of a new and 
great feeling without trembling? The following passage 
contains the imagery to which we have alluded : — 

" And now he distinctly saw shapes somewhat resembling in outline those of the 
human form, gliilin; slowly and with regular evolutions through the cloud. As they 
moved in majestic order, he heard a low sound — which each caught and echoed from 
the other ; a low sound, but musical, which seemed the chant of some unspeakably 
tranquil joy. S-lov ly they glided round and aloft, till, in the same majestic order, one 
after one, they floated through the casement and were lost in the moonlight ; then, ai 
his eyes followed them, the casement became darkened with some object indistin- 
guishable at the first gaze, but which sufficed mysteriously to change into ineffable 
horror the delight he had before experienced. By degrees this object shaped itself to 
his sight. It was as that of a human head, covered with a dark veil, through which 
glared with livid and demoniac fire, eyes that froze the marrow in his bones." 

This is fearfully beautiful painting. Many could bear 
witness to the truthfulness of its suggestions. Cowardly 
fear and distrust give the triumph to this phantom; courage 
and faith alone can conquer it; courage to brave danger or 
disgrace ; faith in the truth, love of the beauty and the good 
to which the mind aspires. In the narrative, the author has 
represented the presence of this loathsome thing as a neces- 
sary part of the ordeal which the neophyte must go through ; 
a presence only to be banished by those w ho can firmly con- 
front its terrible eyes. It vanishes always before a steady 
gaze. The whole of the supernatural machinery of the 
story is, in like manner, founded on profound truths connected 
with the mysteries of our being. The fabled events repre- 
sent, or are types of, the links of association, the sympathies 
and antipathies, the instincts, smothered or left undeveloped 
in common life by the nature of our education, pursuits and 
habits, but not the less elemental principles of nature. 

The character of Viola, the woman through whom Love 
asserts his pre-eminence — his " reign eternal over all," is 
exquisitely drawn in the first portion of the story. Her life 
as an actress, with the pathetic history of the musician 
Pisani, her father, are especially beautiful. The charm of 
the ideal is thrown over every thing connected with her, and 
her purity, childlike and spotless, combined with her impas- 
sioned devotion to Zanoni, the hero, render the picture 
perfect. Out of this lovely character, however, arises the 
grand fault of the work, as an ethical h;".rmony. It is the 
compromise of her passion for Zanoni by her maternal 
instinct over-mastering it. When she becomes a mother, 
she deserts her husband for the sake of her child. This is 



SIR EUWARD LYTTON BULWER. 



307 



a heresy against a pure and exalted love. It is too true that 
it happens very commonly in real life, but not with such a 
woman, and such a love. It was necessary to the course of 
the story to remove her from her great protector, yet some 
other means should have been invented. Deep nature is 
sacrificed to an immediate requisition of the narrative. The 
mistake is cleverly effected by the aid of superstition. But 
superstition could never have been so strong as her love — 
because, as we have said before, a great and ennobling pas- 
sion is the voice of God in the soul, and banishes all weak 
fears. The exalted faith of Zanoni, and the heart-broken 
intensity of affection in Viola under the separation, are 
finely done ; and the re-union still finer. They meet again 
in a dungeon in Paris in the Reign of Terror. Viola is 
condemned to die, and Zanoni relinquishes his '' charmed 
life," his immortality of youth, to save her. He leaves her 
asleep when his guards call him to execution. She is uncon- 
scious of the terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing 
him, a vision of the procession to the guillotine comes upon 
her ; Zanoni radiant in his youth and beauty is there : — 

" On to the B;irriere du Trone ! It frowns dark in the air — the giant instrument of 
murder ! One after one to the glaive ; — another, and another, and another ! Mercy ! 
O merry ! Is the bridge between tiie sun and the shades so brief? — brief as a sigh .' 
There — there — his turn has come. ' Die not yet ; leave me not behind ! Hear me — 
hear me!' shrieked the inspired sleeper. 'What! and thou smilest still I' They 
smiled — those pale lips — and with the smile, the place of doom, the headsman, the 
horror vanished ! With that smile all space seemed suffused in eternal sunshine. 
Up from the earth he rose — he hovered over her — a thing not of matter — an idea of 
joy and light ! Behind, Heaven opened, deep after deep ; and the Hosts of Beauty 
were seen rank upon rank, afar; and ' Welcome,' in a myriad melodies broke from 
your choral multitude, ye People of the Skies — ' Welcome ! O purified by sacrifice, 
and immortal only through the grave — this it is to die.' And radiant amidst the radi- 
ant, the image stretched forth its arms, and murmured to the sleeper, ' Companion 
of Eternity !— this it is to die !' * * * * 

" They burst into a cell, forgotten since the previous morning. They found there 
a young female, sitting upon a wretched bed ; her aims crossed upon her bosom, her 
face raised upwards ; the eyes unclosed, and a smile of more than serenity, — of bliss 
upon her lips. Never had "they seen life eo beautiful ; and as they crept nearer, and 
with noiseless feet, they saw that the lips breathed not, that the repose was of marble, 
that the beauty and the ecstacy were of death." 

We have quoted this beautiful passage because it ought 
to remain on record, singled out as an example of pure and 
exalted conception. To those who knew it before, it will be 
renewed pleasure ; to those who did not, an inducement to 
become acquainted with the work from which it is selected. 

It is strange that in a composition which embodies so 
much high philosophy, the author should have taken so 
puerile a view of the French Revolution. He dwells only 



308 SIR EDWARD LTTTON BULWER. 

on its horrors, — a theme long since exhausted. True, they 
were many and great ; — but slaughterous battles for legiti- 
macy, and long ages of despotism, and inquisitions, and 
Sicilian massacres, and massacres of St. Bartholomew, have 
had their horrors too.* Sir Lytton laments over "the 
throne and the altar !" Words of high and very ancient 
sound; but what besides words were they at that period. — 
In a note to a passage in his Zanoni, he says, " Take away 
murder from the French Revolution, and it becomes the 
greatest farce ever played before angels!" The greatest 
farce ! — was the decrepitude and fall of the altar, then, a 
firce after all — the decrepitude and fall of the throne a farce, 
after all — the brutalized vices of the nobles, their despotism 
and ail-but extinction as a nobility — were these things only 
a great farce? Rather say, the greatest and most frightful 
retribution, the most abused principle, the greatest expiatory 
sacrifice, the most con)prehensive tragedy — any of these are 
nearer the mark, historically, morally, philosophically, and 
as matter of human feeling. 

It is from passages such as this, strangely at variance 
with the philosophical spirit which is unquestionably mani- 
fested in the writings of this author, that he gives an impres- 
sion of shallowness, and also of insincerity and affectation. 
Whatever be the cause, it is certain that he lays himself 
open to these charges. Without coinciding in the accusa- 
tion of shallowness, it is fair to say that he cannot pretend 
to the distinction of an original or profound thinker, or a 
discoverer of truth; but it is much to be capable of perceiv- 
ing and appreciating truth when dug up and displayed by 
others, and this Buhver does; he does more, he is able to 
assimilate it, and make it in some respects his own, by 
giving it new forms and colours, all in harmony with itself. 
His affectations, we take to proceed, partly, from the fact 
that his mind does not always keep up to the high mark it 
attains when imbued with the philosophy it is capable of 
comprehending, but does actually disport itself in certain 
fripperies and follies; and, partly, from the necessity he is 
under of displaying no more truth to the world than the 
world can bear with complacency. 

* " Let them add to this the fact that seventy-tico thousand persons suffered death by 
the hands of the executioner during the reign of Henry the Eighth, and judge between, 
&c." Macaulay's Essays, vol i. p.250. 



SIR ECWARD LYTTON BULWER. 309 

An honest-minded reviewer of the works of Sir E. L. 
Biilwer has said of him, " his soul is not brave enough for 
truth." This is scarcely correct : he is brave enough to face 
any truth, but his policy holds check upon his soul. He 
knows what a strong bull-headed thing the world is, and he 
loves popularity too well to risk having it trampled down by 
hoofs. He never, therefore, goes too far beyond his age ; 
but he keeps up with it always. Hence he maintains his 
popularity, and perhaps when his intellect feels the necessity 
of reining in, it turns a little restive and indulges in some 
curvets at the expense of the "gentle readers" he feels 
obliged to humour. It is further to be admitted that he is 
essentially aristocratic in his tastes and feelings; that in his 
writings there is no true sympathy with humanity until it is 
refined and polished. Grant this, however, and he is a great 
writer. The true delineation of rough nature must not be 
expected of him. The unpolished diamond he would recog- 
nise, and furn coldly from it: nature, with him, requires to 
be perfected — by art. He is prone to idealize all his charac- 
ters. With few exceptions they are the reverse of real or 
substantial. Not that we would have them real, but with 
rather a larger portion of reality. His walk, however, is 
the least of all frequented in this age, and he pursues it, 
in general, worthily. 

If Sir Lytton Bulwer had not already established a high- 
er reputation, he might have fairly laid claim to distinction 
as an historian from his well-studied, classical, and elegant 
work, entitled, " Athens, its Rise and Fall ;" in which he has 
occupied the truer and more extensive field over which his- 
tory ought to extend, instead of confining hiniself to the 
mere chronicle of political events, and the vicissitudes of 
war. The progress of the arts and literature of Athens, 
comprising some fine criticism on its drama, are distinguish- 
ing features of the two volumes already published, and its 
philosophy, social manners, and customs, are promised in the 
two which are to complete the work. 

The " Last of the Barons " ought to have been published 
in the form of history, entitled " Chronicles of the Great 
-Earl of Warwick," or something equivalent : it would have 
been valuable to all interested in such matters. Read as a 
romance, it is intolerably tedious and heavy, and its authen- 
ticity and elaborate research are thrown away ; — for the 



310 SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 

question, " Is it all true ?" must continually occur, just as 
children are apt to interrupt the thread of a story with that 
inquiry. Doubtless, historical novels are among the most 
popular we have, as, for instance, those of Sir Walter Scott, 
and " Rienzi," by Buhver himself; but, in them, the fiction 
predominates, in the " Last of the Barons, "it is the reverse. 

Sir E. L. Buhver is, in private, a very different and su- 
perior man to the character indicated by the portraits of him. 
That by Chalon, conveys the last infirmities of mawkish sen- 
timentality and personal affectation; whereas Sir Lytton is 
very frank, easy, careless (sometimes, perhaps, studiously so), 
good-natured, pleasant, conversible, and without one tint of 
those lack-a-daisy qualities conferred upon him by the 
artists. If his sitting had its "weak moment," the artist 
ought not to have copied it, but to have taken the best of 
the truth of the whole man. 

Now, it mai/ be the fact, that nothing would convey so 
complete a conviction to the mind of Sir Lytton of his own 
genius and general talents, and so perfect a sensation of in- 
ward satisfaction and happiness, as to be seated at a table — 
say in the character of an Ambassador — with his fingers 
covered with dazzling rings, and his feet delightfully pinched 
in a pair of looking-glass boots with Mother-Shipton heels, 
while he held a conversation with two diplomatic foreign- 
ers of distinction from different courts, each in his own lan- 
guage ; took up the thread of an argument with a philoso- 
pher on his right ; put in every now and then a capital re- 
partee to the last remark of a wit at his left elbow, while at 
every moment's pause he continued three letters lying before 
him — one to the Minister of State for the Home department, 
one to a friend, (inclosing a postscript for his tailor,) and one 
on love, containing some exquisite jokes in French and 
Italian on the Platonic Republic — and all those conversa- 
tions, and arguments, and repartees, and writings, continu- 
ing at the same time — each being fed from the same fount, 
with enough to last till the turn came round. And finally, 
that he should discover the drift of one diplomatist, talk over 
the other to his views, confute the phijospoher, silence the 
court wit, convey the most important information to the 
English Premier, give his friend all the advice he asked, and 
something far more subtle besides, (together with the clear- 
est directions and fractional measurements in the postscript,) 



SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 31 1 

and that the love-letter should not only answer every possi- 
ble purpose of kindliness, delight, amusement, and admira- 
tion, but should, by a turn of the wrist, be easily converti- 
ble into an exquisite chapter for a future novel. 

But where is the great mischief of any private fancies of 
this kind, which moreover have some foundation in an un- 
doubted versatility and general accomplishments? Even in 
the matter of external daintiness, a great deal too much fuss 
is made about it, and many ill-natured remarks vented, as if 
no other eminent man had a private hobby. If the private 
hobbies of the majority of our leading minds, and well-known 
men of genius, were displayed, the eyes of the Public would 
open to the largest circle, and its mouth become pantomi- 
mic. One great author has a fancy for conjuring tricks, 
which he performs " in a small circle," to admiration ; an- 
other would play at battledore and shuttle-cock, till he drop- 
ped; another or two (say a dozen) prefer a buUtt to any 
other work of art ; one likes to be a tavern-king, and to be 
placed in " the chair ;" another prefers to sit on a wooden 
bench round the fire of a hedge alehouse, and keep all the 
smock-frocks in a roar; two or three are amateur mesmer- 
ists, and practise " the passes " with prodigious satisfaction; 
one poet likes to walk in a high wind and a pelting rain, 
without his hat, and repeating his verses aloud ; another 
smokes during half the day, and perhaps half the night, with 
his feet upon the fender and puffing the cloud up the chim- 
ney ; another sits rolled up in a bear's-skin, and as soon as 
he has got " the idea," he rushes out to write it down ; an- 
other has a fancy for playing all sorts of musical instru- 
ments, and could not be left alone in a room with organ, bag- 
pipe, or bassoon, but in a ^e\v minutes a symphony would 
begin to vibrate through the wall ; — and if so much is 
thought of an over-attention to a man's bodily outside, what 
should be said of those who — as one would fill a tub — pour 
or cram into the bodily inside so much that isnot harn)less, but 
injures health, and with it injures the powers of the mind, 
and the moral feelings, besides shortening the duration of life. 
We should look into ourselves, and be tolerant. 

Notwithstanding the popularity of Sir E. L. Bulwer, we 
hardly think he has been sufficiently appreciated as a great 
novelist by the majority, even of those critics who admire 
his works ; while the hostile attacks and depreciations have 



312 SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 

been very numerous and unceasing. Of his philosophy we 
would say in brief that we believe the world is hardly in 
the main so bad as he considers it, and certainly with many 
more exceptions than he seems to admit ; and that he him- 
self is a much better man than he knows of, and only wants 
more faith in genuine and sincere nature to be himself the 
possessor of a share as large as his faith. 



WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH, 



^'Madame Tnssand describes * * * * as a fine handsrome-looking man, with a 
florid complexion, and a military air. He had presided over some of the massacres Id 
the provinces." 

Madame Tussaud's Memoirs. 

"With regard to the personal descriptions of the dift'erent characters introduced 
throughout the work, it may be confidently asserted, that they are likely to be more 
accurate than those generally given by other authors." 

Ibid. Preface. 

From the historical novel and romance, as re-originated 
in modern times, by Madame de Genlis and Sir Walter 
Scott, and adopted with such high success by Sir. E. L, 
Buhver, and with such extensive popularity by Mr. James, 
there has of late years sprung up a sort of lower or less his- 
torical romance, in which the chief part of the history con- 
sisted in old dates, old names, old houses, and old clothes. 
But dates in themselves are but numerals, names only sounds, 
houses and streets mere things to be copied from prints and 
records ; and any one may do the same with regard to old 
coats, and hats, wigs, waistcoats, and boots. Now, we 
know that " all flesh is grass," but grass is not flesh, for all 
that ; nor is it of any use to shew us hay for humanity. 

To throw the soul back into the vitality of the past, to 
make the imagination dwell with its scenes and walk hand 
in hand with knowledge; to live with its most eminent men 
and women, and enter into their feelings and thoughts as 
well as their abodes, and be sensitive with them of the strik- 
ing events and ruling influences of the time; to do all this, 
and to give it a vivid form in words, so as to bring it before 
the eye, and project it into the sympathies of the modern 
world, this is to write the truest history no less than the 
finest historical fiction ; this is to be a great historical ro- 
numcist — something very diflferent from a reviver of old 
clothes. 



314 WILLIAM HARRISOiV AINSWORTH. 

Such are the extremes of this class; and if there be very 
few who in execution approach tlie higher standard, so there 
are perhaps none who do not display some merits which re- 
deem them from the charge of a mere raking and furbish- 
ing up of by-gone materials. But as there is a great incur- 
sion of these un-historical un-romantic romances into the 
literature of the present day, and fresh adventurers marshal- 
ling their powers of plunder on the borders, it may be of 
some service that vve have drawn a strong line of demarca- 
tion, displaying the extreme distinctions, and leaving the 
application to the general judgment. 

With regard to the iXewgate narrative of " Jack Shep- 
pard," and the extraordinarily extensive notoriety it obtained 
for the writer, upon the residuum of which he founded his 
popularity, so much just severity has already been adminis- 
tered from criticism and from the o})inion of the intellectual 
portion of the public, and its position has been so fully set- 
tled, that we are glad to pass over it without farther animad- 
version. 

The present popularity of Mr. Ainsworth could not have 
risen out of its own materials. His so-called historical ro- 
mance of " Windsor Castle " is not to be regarded as a work 
of literature open to serious criticism. It is a picture book, 
and full of very pretty pictures. Also full of catalogues of 
numberless suits of clothes. It would be difficult to open it 
any where without the eye falling on such words as cloth of 
gold, silver tissue, green jerkin, white plumes. 

Looking for an illustration, we are stopped at the 
second page. Here is the introduction of two characters : — 

" His countenance wa.'i full of thought and intelligence ; and he had a broad, lofty 
brow, iihadcd by a profusion of lii;ht brown ringlets ; a long, straight, and finely-form- 
ed nose ; a full, sensitive, and well-chiselled mouth; and a pointed chin. His eyes 
were large, dark, and soinevvhat melancholy in expression ; and his complexion pos- 
sessed that rich, clear, brown tint, constantly met with in Italy or Spain, though hut 
seldom seen in a native of our collier clime. His dress was rich but sombre, consist- 
ing of a doublet of black satin, worked with threads of Venetian gold ; hose of the 
same material, and similarly embroidered; a shiit curiously wrought with black silk, 
and fastened at the collar with black enamelled clasps ; a cloak of black velvet, pass- 
roented with uold, and lined with crimson satin ; a flat black velvet cap, set with 
pearls and goldsmith's work, and adorned with a short white plume ; and black velvet 
buskins. His arms were rapier and dagger, both having gilt and graven handles, and 
eheaths of black velvet. 

" As he moved along the sound of yoices chanting vespers arose from St. George's 
Chapel ; and while he paused to listen to the solemn strains, a door in that part of the 
castle used as the King's privy lodgings, opened, and a person advanced towards him. 
The new comer had broad, brown, martial-looking features, darkened still more by a 
thick coal-black beard, clipped short in the fashion of the time, and a pair of enor- 
mous moustachioi. Ho was accoutred in a habergeon, which gleamed from beneath 



WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH. 315 

the folds of a russet-coloured mantle, und wore a steel cap in lieu of a bonnet on his 
heap." 

Windsor Castle, p. 2-3. 

The bonk is also full of processions, banquets, royal 
hunting pirties, courtiers, lords, and jesters, who are indeed 
" very dull fools." It has, moreover, a demon ghost in the 
form of Heme the Hunter, who according to this legend, 
led King Henry VHI. and all his court the life of a dog. 
As to plot or story it does not pretend to any. 

" Old St. Paul's, a tale of the Plague and the Fire," is 
a diluted imitation of some parts of De Foe's " Plague in 
London," varied with libertine adventures of Lord Roches- 
ter and his associates. It is generally dull, except when it 
is revolting. There are descriptions of nurses who poison 
or smother their patients, wretched prisoners roasted alive 
in their cells, and one felon who thrusts his arms through 
the red-hot bars, — " literally" is added, by way of apology. 

A critic recently remarked of Mr. Ainswonh's " St. 
James's, or the Court of Queen Anne," that the delinea- 
tions of character in it were mere portraits, and nothing 
more. " The business in which they are engaged has no 
vitality for any but themselves — it is dull, passe in every 
sense of the word, and they leave not a single incident or 
memento of romance or poetry behind them by which to 
identify them in our hearts; so that, in truth, we turn back 
from these cut-and-dry dummies to Maclise's portrait of 
Mr. Ainsworth quite as a matter of relief; and as we sit 
contemplating his handsome and cheerful lineaments, won- 
der how, in the name of all that is romantic, he will get 
through the task which he has assigned to himself, of ren- 
dering the dullest period of our history amusing to our 
" mass " of readers. It is one thing to write an historical 
romance; another, to write a romantic history ; and a third 
to write a history without any romance." This is all very 
just, and we might quote many similar opinions. 

It has become very plain, that, brief as this paper is, the 
natural termination of it can no longer be delayed. The 
truth must be told. This paper is a joint production. No 
sooner were the first two p ira^'raphs seen, than the article 
was taken out of the writer's hands in order to prevent a 
severity which seemed advancing with alarming strides. 
But the continuation by another hand appearing to be very 



316 WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH, 

little better, recourse was had to a quotation from the 
author's works, introduced by a third hand; and finally, as 
it was feared by the hint at " similar opinions" that further 
critical references were intended, it was unanimously agreed 
that nothing more should be done in that way, except to 
coincide with the remark made above, as to the handsome 
and good-tempered portrait of a man who is usually spared 
in public, because so much esteemed and regarded in 
private. 



MRS. SHELLEY. 



" Out of the depths of Nature — 
Substance, shades, or dreams, 

Thou shall call up — sift — and take 

What seems fitting best to make 

A structure, fraught with direful gleams, 
Or one all tilled with many beams." 

" Oh you, who sentried stand upon the temple wall ; 
Holy, and nearer to the glory's golden fall, 
Moon-like, possess and shed at large its rays !" 

CoKNELius Mathews, 

• For though 



Not to be pierced by the dull eye whose beam 
Is spent on outward shapes, there is a way 
To make a search into its hidden'st passage." 

Shiri-et. 

The imaginative romance as distinguished from the his- 
torical romance, and the actual or social life fiction, is of 
very rare occurrence in the literature of the present day. 
Whether the cause lies with the writers or the public, or 
the character of events and influences now operating on 
society, certain it is that the imaginative romance is almost 
extinct among us. 

We had outgrown the curdling horrors and breathless 
apprehensions of Mrs. RatcliiTe, and the roseate pomps of 
Miss Jane Porter. But why have we no Frankensteins, for 
that fine work is in advance of the age? 

Perhaps we ought to seek the cause of the scarcity in 
the difficulty of the production. A mere fruitless, purpose- 
less excitement of the imagination will not do now. The 
iniaginative romance is required to be a sort of epic — a 
power to advance — a something to propel the frame of 
things. Such is Bulwer's " Zanoni," a profound and beau- 
tiftd work of fiction, which has been reviewed in its place, 
and in which Godwin's " St. Leon " found a worthy suc- 
cessor. With this single exception, the first place among 



318 MRS. SHKLLEr. 

the romances of our day belongs to the '•' Frankenstein" of 
Mrs. Shelley. 

The solitary student with whom the longing desire to 
pry into the secrets of nature, ends in the discovery of the 
vital principle itself, and the means of conmiunicating it, 
thus describes the consummation of his toils. We quote 
the passage as illustrative of the genius by which the extra- 
vagance of the conception is rendered subservient to artisii- 
cal effect: — 

"It was on a dreary iiight of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my 
toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments 
of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay 
at my feet. It was already one in the morning ; the rain pattered dismally against 
the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-ex- 
tinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, 
and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. 

" How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch 
whom with such infinite pains and care 1 had endeavoured to form ? His limbs were 
in proportion, and 1 had selected his features as beautiful Beautiful ! — Great God ! 
His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath ; his hair 
was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness ; but these luxu- 
riances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost 
of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled 
complexion, and straight black lips." 

Frankenstein, vol. i. p. 97, 98. 

The monster in " Frankenstein," sublime in his ugli- 
ness, his simplicity, his passions, his wrongs and his strength, 
physical and mental, embodies in the wild narrative more 
than one distinct and important moral theory or proposition. 
In himself he is the type of a class deeply and cruelly 
aggrieved by nature — the Deformed or hideous in figure or 
countenance, whose sympathies and passions are as strong 
as their bodily deli^rmity renders them repulsive. An amount 
of human woe, great beyond reckoning, have such experi- 
enced. When the Monster pleads his cause against cruel 
man, and when he finally disappears on his raft on the icy 
sea to build his own funeral pile, he pleads the cause of all 
that class who have so strong a claim on the help and sym- 
pathy of the world, yet find little else but disgust, or at best, 
neglect. 

The Monster created by Frankenstein is also an illus- 
tration of the embodied consequences of our actions. As 
he, when formed and endowed with life became to his im- 
aginary creator an everlasting ever-present curse, so may 
one single action, nay a word, or it may be a thought, thrown 
upon the tide of time, become to its originator a curse, never 
to be recovered, never to be shaken off. 



MRS. SBELLSr. SI9 

" Frankenstein " suggests yet another analogy. It 
teaches the tragic results of attainment when an impetuous 
irresistible passion hurries on the soul to its doom. Such 
tragic results are the sacrificial fires out of which humanity 
rises purified. f hey constitute one form of the great min- 
istry of Pain. The conception of " Frankenstein " is the 
converse of that of the delightful German fiction of Peter 
Schlemil, in which the loss of his shadow (reputation or 
honour) leads on the hero through several griefs and troubles 
to the great simplicity of nature and truth ; while in 
"Frankenstein" the attahuncnt of a gigantic reality leads 
through crime and desolation to the same goal, but it is 
only reached in the moment of death. 

In " Pantika, or Traditions of the most Ancient Times," 
by William Hovvitt, there is much imaginative power, and 
great invention. These tales abound in lofty thoughts, and 
the descriptions are both beautiful and grand. The " Exile 
of Heaven " is, perhaps, the finest of the series both in de- 
sitrn and execution. There is sublimity in the rapid view 
of creation as witnessed by the Angel, and in the picture of 
Cain, and in that of Satan. There is also gorgeous and 
glowing painting in the description of the voluptuous city 
of Lilith the Queen of Beauty, whom the Angel in his pre- 
sumption had created to be more perfect than Eve, and 
through whom he had lost Heaven and brought evil on 
earth. The contrast between this imaginative creation and 
that of Frankenstein is curious. The punishment here 
comes through beauty instead of deformity. Lilith is made 
too beautiful; it is impossible to sympathize with the 
Angel's hatred of her, or to believe she was evil. This is the 
fault of the story. The attempt to make her exquisitely 
beautiful, yet not an object of any sympathy, is unsuccess- 
ful. The fact is, " friend Howitt " has got into a very tick- 
lish position. We venture to submit that the loveliness of 
his misleading fair cne ought to have been made to fade 
gradually before the view, as the merely external always 
does in its influence upon the senses. This would, at least, 
have shown an individual triumph over her; but as the 
story st-mds she is triumphant (as at present the sensual beauty 
is in the world), with every prospect of continuing so, ac- 
cording to the sequel of this gorgeous fable. 

There is a high purpose in the Angel's final humility, 



320 MRS. SHELLEY. 

his submission to the existence of evil, and to the impossi- 
bility of obliterating the consequences of action. The 
teachings which lead to this are finely managed ; — as when, 
in his wanderings through space, he sees a dim planet cov- 
ered with water, suddenly become convulsed and tossed in 
hideous commotion, and while he murmurs at the ruin he 
expects to witness, beholds a fair world emerge from these 
fiery and terrific throes ; the mountains have risen, the 
waters are confined to their appointed bed, the dry land is 
ready to become clothed with verdure, and a great and 
beneficent work has been done. 

Most of the other tales are built too much on the fierce 
and exclusive spirit of the ancient Jewish people. They 
consequently breathe a vindictive, bloodthirsty tone. The 
horrible punishment of the Starving Man who kills and 
eats the Scape-goat, and then finds himself possessed by all 
the crimes of mankind ; the wretched case of the poor 
Soothsayer cursed by the Hebrew Prophet, and detained in 
bed for a whole year by a congregation of all the Idols in 
his room (standing round his bed) who will not suffer him 
to move, and keep in his life by feeding him on oil-cake, till 
he almost turns into a mummy, and at last sees the Idols 
begin to crumble round him, and reptiles crawling about 
among the ruins ; these are fine and striking inventions, 
worthy of an eastern imagination, and only assume a repul- 
sive appearance because the Infinite Power of the universe 
is represented as causing them. If Allah or Buddha had 
done this, we should have felt nothing of the kind. 

Had the author of the "Manuscripts of Erdely " pos- 
sessed clearness of conception and arrangement of his sub- 
ject in the same degree as he is gifted with imagination, 
invention, and fine power of developing character and de- 
scribing both action and scenery, his work would have been 
entitled to one of the highest places in romance. But Mr. 
Stephens has destroyed the effect of his work by the pro- 
digality of his incidents and personages, and by the confu- 
sion of his metiiod of dealing with them. There is matter 
for four different plots, with a hero and heroine to each, in 
his one romance. He gives evidence of a learned research 
and historical knowledge; we find also a puzzling array of 
names, not unlike that which is to be found in Robert 
Browning's " Sordello." There are, besides, too many 



MRS. SHELLET. 321 

quotations, and the fault is the less pardonable in a writer of 
such great original power. 

We have said that there is a fine power of description in 
this author. In attempting an illustration, we are puzzled 
where to choose, so many present themselves. The follow- 
ing beautiful and poetical passage must suffice. A man 
pure in character but maligned on earth has appealed to the 
spirit of his dead wife for sympathy: — 

" Spirit of the departed ! do you know that I am innocent .' 

" He raised his eyes, and a curdling thrill crept tlirough his veins ! for, lo ! the 
prayer, that, al.nost silently, hid welled up from the sanctuary of his soul, had 
reached its aim, and had an answer. The far depths of the room became gradually 
brightened with a glory, not of this world ; and a dim, thin, human shape, slowly 
developed its indistinct and shadowy outline, by insensibly divesting itself, as it were, 
of one immortal shroud after another, till it stood, pale and confessed, in ethereal 
repose." Manuscripts of Erdely, vol. i. p. 307. 

" Mrs. Shelley has published, besides " Frankenstein," 
a romance entitled " Valperga," which is less known than 
the former, but is of high merit. She exhibits in her hero, 
a brave and successful warrior, arriving at the height of his 
ambition, endowed with uncommon beauty and strength, and 
with many good qualities, yet causes him to excite emotions 
of reprobation and pity, because he is cruel and a tyrant, 
and because in the truth of things he is unhappy. This is 
doing a good work, taking the false glory from the eyes and 
showing things as they are. There are two female charac- 
ters of wonderful power and beauty. The heroine is a 
lovely and noble creation. The work, taken as a whole, if 
below " Frankenstein" in genius, is yet worthy of its author 
and of her high rank in the aristocracy of genius, as the 
daughter of Godwin and Mary Wolstonecraft, and the widow 
of Shelley. 



15 



ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 



" Pamassua is transformed to Zion Hill, 
And Jewry-palms her steep ascents do fill. 
Now good St. Peter weeps pure Helicon, 
And both the Maries make a music-moan ; — 
Yea, and the prophet of the heavenly lyre, 
Great Solomon, sings in the English quire, 
And is become anew-found Sonnetist!" 

Bishop Hall. SatiieU, 

Mr. P. — " My friend ! — {patting his shoulder') — this is not a bell. (Patting the tin 
tell.) It is a very fine Organ !" 

Drama of Punch. 

Humour may be divided into three classes ; the broad, 
the quiet, and the covert. Broad humour is extravagant, 
voluble, obtrusive, full of rich farce and loud laughter : — 
quiet humour is retiring, suggestive, exciting to the imagi- 
nation, few of words, and its pictures grave in tone : — covert 
humour, (which also comprises quiet humour,) is allegorical, 
typical, and of cloven tongue — its double sense frequently 
delighting to present the reverse side of its real meaning, to 
smile when most serious, to look grave when most face- 
tiously disposed. Of this latter class are the comic poems 
of the ingenious Robert Montgomery, a humourist whose 
fine original vein has never been rightly appreciated by his 
contemporaries. He has been scoffed at by the profane for 
writing unmeaning nonsense, when that very nonsense had 
the most dii interested and excellent moral aim ; he has 
passed for a q lack, when he nobly made his muse a martyr ; 
he has been laughed at, when he should have been admired ; 
he has been ^\ravely admired when his secret laughter 
should have found response in every inside. He has been 
extensively purchased ; but he has not been understood. 

In these stirring times when theologies are looking up, 
and the ribald tongues of fifty thousand sectarian pulpits 
wag wrathfully around the head of the Established Mater- 



ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 323 

nity ; while she herself is suffering intestine pains from dan- 
gerous wars, and the pure spirit of Religion is wandering 
and waiting in the distant fields ; it behooves all those 
thrifty shepherds who are still disposed to multiply the 
goods of this world, and take up the burdens and vain 
pomps which others being less strong, may, peradventure, 
find too onerous, — it behooves such shepherds, we repeat, to 
look keenly through and beneath all these struggles and 
backslidings, and to watch over the movements of wealthy 
congregations. 

It is not to be denied that with the vigorous elements 
which distinguish the spirit of the present age, are mingled 
many weaknesses and short-coiiiiiigs; that winding about its 
truthfulness there are many falsehoods and hypocrisies; that 
the battle for the right is but loo frequently mixed up and 
confused with the battle for the wrong ; and that amidst so 
much that is high-minded and sincere, there is perhaps still 
more that is selfish and cunning, that is, in fact, not genuine 
but humbugeous. 

"The London Charivari," to which allusion has previ- 
ously been made in this work, page 163, comprises the 
three classes of humour described at the opening of this 
paper, and may also be said to have a wit and humour pecu- 
liar to itself. The application of these faculties, always 
liable to exert a powerful influence for good or evil, has been 
from the very first commencement of that periodical, de- 
voted to the cause of justice, of good feeling, and of truth. 
The most " striking" characteristic of this " Punch" is his 
hatred and ridicule of all grave-fiiced pretences and char- 
latanery. Considering his very unscrupulous nature, it is 
remarkable how little there is of actual private personality 
in him. If he strikes at a man domestically, which is very 
rare, it is by no means on account of his quiet " hearth- 
stone," but of his public humbugeosity. Never before 
were so many witty, humorous, and choice-spirited indi- 
viduals amicably associated together for any thing like so 
long a period ; and never before did so many perfectly free- 
spoken wits and humourists indulge their fancies and make 
their attacks with so good-natured a spirit, and without one 
spark of wanton mischief and malignity. It is a marked 
sign of good in the present age. 

In this same light, and to these same moral aims, — 



324 ROBEnr Montgomery. 

though with a characteristic difference such as marks all 
original genius — do we regard the public character and 
works of the much-admired yet equally maligned Robert 
Montgomery. At some future time, and when his high pur- 
pose can no longer be injured by a discovery of its inner 
wheels and movements, springs and fine escapements — 
at such a period he may perhaps vouchsafe a key to all his 
great works ; meantime, however, in his defence, because 
we are unable to bear any longer the spectacle of so total a 
misconception of a man's virtues and talents in the public 
mind, we will offer a few elucidatory comments upon two of 
his larger productions. 

The poem of" Satan" is evidently the work of a great 
freethinker. Far be it from us to use this much-abused 
and perverted expression in any but its true sense, with 
regard to Mr. Robert Montgomery. Freely he thinks of all 
spiritual and mundane things ; in fact, his freedom amounts 
to a singular degree of familiarity with those Essences and 
Subjects concerning which nearly every body else entertains 
too much awe, and doubt of themselves, to venture upon 
any thing like proximity or circumambience. But though 
the thinking faculty of Mr. Robert Montgomery makes thus 
free, it is only within the bounds of the " Establishment," as 
defined in his Preface, though not necessarily governed in 
all other respects, — to use his own inimitable words, — by 
" the sternness of adamantine orthodoxy."* In support of 
the spiritual part of his treatment of his subject, and refer- 
ring to the free-thinking of his hero, (who is not only the 
Prince of Air, but the London Perambulator, as proved by 
this poem,) Mr. Montgomery quotes the following from a 
high authority: — " Thus the Devil has undoubtedly a great 
degree of speculative knowledge in divinity ; having been, as 
it were, educated in the best divinity school in the uni- 
verse," &c. He also quotes from the same author (Jona- 
than Edwards) that " it is evident he (the Devil) has a 
great speculative knowledge of the nature of experimental 
religion." These preliminary statements of the more 
enlarged view we should take of the Satanic mind, and its 
many unsuspected acquirements, together with much more 
which we cannot venture to quote, will be found in the 
Preface to the fourth edition of this accomplished Prince. 

* Preface to the Fifth Edition of" .Satan," p. 2. 



ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 825 

Having stated the spiritual or " experimental " drift, we 
have only now to point to the worldly activity or practical 
application, and we shall at once find a key to this sublime- 
ly humorous design, and its high moral purpose. This ap- 
plication we shall find in the covert parody of the "Devil's 
Walk," (the one which has been ascribed jointly to Porson 
and to Southey,) which for the force and piquancy of its satire 
has rarely been surpassed. Accordingly, Mr. Robert Mont- 
gomery considers the hero of his poem as a real, personal, 
and highly intellectual agent, walking about London — he 
distinctly alludes to London — so that, to follow out this 
poet's excursion, we might meet Satan on 'Change, hear 
his voice on Waterloo Bridge, see him taking a jelly in 
the saloon of Drury Lane theatre, or seated demurely in a 
pew at Church, with a psalter stuck on his off-horn. Mr, 
Montgomery intimates and suggests all these sort of things, 
— nay, he directly describes many of the circumstances. 
For instance, Satan goes to the play. To what part of the 
house is not said. His natural locality would of course 
be the pit, and, for this very reason, he would probably pre- 
fer the one shilling gallery ; but as Mr. Montgomery clearly 
explains that his hero went there on business — to collect 
materials for this very poem, which is written as a diabolico- 
theological and philosophical soliloquy — it is to be presumed 
that he was in the boxes. He thus describes a few of his 
observations, and personal sensations. 

" Music and Pomp their mingling spirit shed 
Around me ; beauties in their cloud-like robes 
Shine forth, — a scenic paradise, it glares 
Intoxication through the reeling sense 
Of flushed enjoyment." 

Satan, Book V. 

The comparison of a theatrical scene with a scene in 
paradise, and made by one who had actually been in both 
places, would be more bold than reverent, in any other wri- 
ter ; nor are we by any means sure that Satan or his poet 
could show the slightest foundation for it. But we bow to 
their joint authority. He next describes the different class- 
es of the audience. Some wish to mount upon Shakspeare's 
wings, and " win a flash" of his thought ; but the second, 
he says, are " a sensual tribe ;" — 

" Convened to hear romantic harlots sing, 
On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze, 



326 ROBSRT MONTGOMERY. 

While the bright perfidy of wanton eyes 
Through brain and spirit darts delicious fire '." 

Ibid. 

Well may this stern " spirit" feel it delicious, after the 
very different kind of flame to which he has been elsewhere 
accustomed. This is to write philosophy and history, moral 
satire, and autobiography, all under one highly humorous 
head. 

The main object of the poem of" Satan," however in- 
geniously it may be covered up, is to work out the deep 
satire of the old proverb of the " Devil quoting Scripture ;" 
in fact, he very ably defends in his Prefaces, the propriety 
of displaying Satan as a great preaching LL. D. in private, 
or a D. D. hypocrite in public. Let any one read his Pre- 
faces — they must see his fine aim. Hence, we shall discover 
in this sublime poem a succession of well-glossed blows and 
thrusts at all those clerical brethren who are not guided 
and governed in their duties and efforts by " the sternness 
of adamantine orthodoxy." It will, to any close observer, 
be perceived that the work throughout, shows no quarter to 
Dissent or Tergiversation ; nor to any of the proud visions 
of Nevv-fangledness, which have of late exalted their dark 
antlers above the horns of the average humility. 

" Upon the forehead of these fearless times 
I know the haughtiness that now exults : 
But let the modern in his pride, beware !" 

Satan, b. ir. 

Equally, in melodious cornopaean strains does he breathe 
forth a wail over cornucopian pluralities. Here are his own 
soft yet reproachful, sweet yet terrible words — no German 
flute was ever more tenderly searching, nor when based on 
an ophecleide accompaniment, more confounding. 

" Partaken mercies are forgotten things. 
But Expectation hath a grateful heart 
Hailing the smile of promise from afar: 
Enjoyment dies into ingratitude," &c. 

Ibid. 

And presently afterwards in speaking of " haughty-fea- 
tured England," he compares certain proud authorities, to — 

" A hell-born feeling such as I would nurse. 
* * * * 

Of Mammon, that vile despot of the soul. 
The happy meekness of contented minds 
li fretted with ambition, &c. 

Ibid, b. iv. 



ROBERT MONTGOMBRT. 327 

Ahem ! Really this is a very sad state of things. 
Amidst all this fine comic writing who can fail to see the 
sadness of the subtle truth that lurks beneath the assumed 
gravity. The hero of the poem playing the nurse to a ju- 
venile compatriot (in the first line of the preceding quota- 
tion) is an equally dark and " palpable" hit at the very dan- 
gerous teachings of various branches of Dissent, and sec- 
tions of the Church itself; while the "happy meekness" of 
those " contented minds" which are " fretted with ambition" 
quietly and quaintly slips in a reflection that must have 
caused the sounding-board of many a pulpit to tremble with 
the vibratory effluence of the Conscience beneath. More- 
over, as Satan loarins with his theme, he becomes yet more 
direct in his attack, though we are not quite sure at what 
denomination of the unorthodox he levels his fork : — 

" Some gracious, grand, and most accomplished few, 
Each with a little kingdom in his brain, 
Who club together to re-cast the world, 
And love bo many that they care for none," &c. 

Ibid, b. vi. 

Such is the main-spring of the covered movement " cap- 
ped and jewelled," which is discoverable in the great poem 
of " Satan." That there are many branch-movements and 
inferior wheels playing upon the complex circle of general 
lay society, is equally apparent, even as was done in its 
prototype, (the " Devil's Walk,") but we cannot give space 
to their examination. A few insulated passages, illustrative 
of poetical excellencies, of the opinion secretly entertained 
by the poet of himself, and of the character of the accom- 
plished Prince, are all that can be attempted. Of the latter 
he finely says, — 

" His nature was a whirlpool of desires, 
And mighty passions, perilously mixed, 
That with the darkness of the demon world 
Had something of the light of Heaven." 

Ibid, b. ii. 

With what graceful ingenuity does the poet seem to say 
so much in the first line just quoted, and yet say nothing; 
because it is clear that desires, in a whirlpool of themselves, 
could not exist as any one definite desire. The line, there- 
fore, is a terrific nothing. What follows, no doubt furnished 
Milton with the idea of his Satan, whose form had not yet 
lost all its " original brightness ; nor appeared lesi than 



828 ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 

archangel ruined." It is hence very evident that Milton, by 
the inspiration of his genius, foresaw what Robert Mont- 
gomery would say, and wisely availed himself of the poetic 
revelation. Montgomery's " Satan" is, nevertheless, dis- 
posed to be complimentary to Milton, who, he says, is, — 

" Flaming with visions of eternal glare !" 

Jbid, b. V. 

The compliment has rather a professional look ; but it 
should be remembered from whose mouth this proceeds. 
The same great master of light also favours us with the fol- 
lowing portrait : — 

" Then mark the hypocrite of pious mould, 
For ever putting on unearthly moods, 
And looking lectures with his awful eyes, &c. 

* * * * 

Or sternly paints some portraiture of sin. 
But feels himself the model whence he drew." 
Jbid, b. iii. 

We are upon dangerous ground, we know ; but it is ever 
thus in dealing with great humrurists. One never scarcely 
knows where to have them. He proceeds in this strain : — 

" Meanwhile, I flatter the surpassing fool, 

* * * * 

Too mean for virtue, too polite for vice." 

Jbid, b. iii. 

This Prince is becoming personal, and we must there- 
fore conclude with one more flash of his pen at those who, 
impelled " by frenzied glory," will venture on " till dashed 
to ruin ;'' and he then makes an apostrophe to the " Review 
of Departed Days" of poetry, — 

" By whom, as beacon-light for time unborn. 
The past might well have risen, — hast forgot 
The law of retribution in thy love 
Of fame, and adoration to the dead. — 
A war awakes ! — whatpoetry is here " &c" 

Ibid, b. iv. 

All that rem ains, therefore, with reference to the 
Princely Preacher's prolonged soliloquy, is to give one spe- 
cimen of the "poetry," as abstract art, of his — we had al- 
most said — Serene Highness, so very amiable does he appear 
in these pages : — 

" So may it ever be ! let ages gone, — 
W^hence monuments, by sad experience piled, 
Might o'er unheedlul diiys a warning frown, — 
Like buried lumber, in oblivion sleep ; 
Experience is the sternest foe of hell." 

Ibid, b. IT. 



ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 329 

How novel a face does even the commonest proverb 
wear, when rouged and rabbit-pawed by genius ! The last 
line admirably conveys the intimation of what " a burnt 
child" both dreads and hates; or, perhaps, it would rather 
infer that those who are burnt most become the most impla- 
cably hot. Our last quotation must be in illustration of the 
fine " keeping" which exists in this poem as a work of art. 
Other poems seek to rise to a climax, now and then, and 
usually towards the close; but this very properly descends, 
and thoroughly illustrates "the art of sinking in poetry " 
described by Dean Swift. Let us observe how, step by step, 
from primitive elements to chaos, thence to the Satanic soli- 
tude, thence to a chorus of thunder-clouds, thence to an 
earthly commotion, thence (like the last revival of a dying 
candle) to nature's reel of anguish, and thence — to a small 
geographic familiarity. 

" I love this passion of the Elements, 
This mimicry of chaos, in their miijht 
Of storm ! — And heie, in my lone awfulnesa, 
While every cloud a thunder-hymn repeats. 
Earth throbs, and nature in convulsion reels, 
Farewell to England 1" 

Jbid, h. vi. 

This is a truly unique specimen of the bathetic, and 
does his Unserene Profundity the most abysmal degree of 
credit. 

Impressed with the deepest admiration of his sublimity 
and covert humour, we pass onwards, bowing, through his 
other works, and beneath their walls and towers of many 
editions, until we bow ourselves into the presence of Mr. 
Robert Montgomery's " Woman." As a poem, the subject 
is both human and divine ; but it has moreover a secret and 
occult purpose of the most magnanimous kind. 

Ostensibly this poem entitled " Woman " is a versified 
flattery, extending through upwards of three thousand three 
hundred lines, and it also abounds with sentiments of gal- 
lantry and of chivalry, which in these dull days of matter- 
of-fact courtship is really quite refreshing to meet with. 
One specimen will suffice : — 

" Next Chivalry, heroic child. 
With brow erect, and features mild. 
Placed Love upon his matchless throne, 
For gallantry to guard alone. 
Then, woman ! in that reign of heart. 
How peerless was thy magic part ! 
* * * * 

15* 



330 ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 

And shall we, in a venal age, 

When love hath grown more coldly sage. 

With frigid laugh and frown decry 

The bright return of Chiva'ry ? — 

The trumpet music of the past. 

In tales of glory doom'd to last, — 

No longer must one echo stir 

The pulse of English character ?" 

Woman, canto ii 

But while the exoteric adulations of the fair, and sem- 
blances of a yearning to restore the romance of ancient days 
of chivalry, with his suggestions for a new order of Church 
Militant, might lead one to confer upon his gallant Rever- 
ence the title of the Spiritual Quixote, there lurks beneath 
all this an esoteric design yet more magnanimous, and of 
still greater purity of self-devotion. Compared with this 
" the tales of glory doom'd to last " (let us observe his covert 
contempt of such glory in the expression o^ doom'd) will be 
regarded as the mere toys and gilded brutalities of a rude 
age : nor shall we pay further attention to those bright ex- 
ternal attractions of the fair, which, as this poet says, by 
their "ray of midiscern'd control," — 

" Advanced above life's daily sphere, 
Diclosed her radiance, full and near ; 
And kindled for beclouded man 
The light that only woman can." 

Woman, c. ii. 

The very bad grammar by which the last couplet is 
beclouded, (and which indeed is so marked a feature in this, 
and other poems of the same inspired penman,) will do much 
to prove that Mr. Robert Montgomery always has ulterior 
designs far above and beyond all the materiality of mere 
philological expression, and that his muse is not amenable 
to any of its known laws and requisitions. 

The secret purpose, then, which is concealed with so 
much subtle humour, like a bright serpent, beneath all the 
superincumbent rubbish-couplets of this wonderful work of 
" Woman," is nothing less than an attempt to bring about 
a thorough reformation in Art, by means of a thorough 
purification of the public taste in poetry. This reforma- 
tion and this purification he seeks to accomplish by the 
converse of the usually received notions as to the required 
process. Observing that to give the public the most pure 
and refined poetical productions does not answer the desired 
end, because they are not read, or, when read, only appre- 



ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 331 

elated by the few, the high-soaring, disinterested, and ori- 
ginal mind of Robert Montgomery has alighted upon the 
idea of opening the eyes of the public by a master-stroke of 
genius; viz. by giving it a production which it would read, 
and of a kind which should display the strongest possible 
contrast to all genuine poetry, so that the public should sud- 
denly exclaim, " What is this darkness? — and where is the 
light? — what intensely atrocious trash do we read? — and 
where is the most unlike thing to this ; for our souls are 
confounded and athirst !" 

Accordingly, with a magnanimity only to be classified 
with that of the devout martyrs, and of the Roman heroes 
who devoted themselves for the good of their country, this 
great Virtue has devoted itself — not to an honourable fate, 
but, more than that, to the utmost disgrace for the good of 
his literature ! Knowing well what he was about, and fully 
prepared for all the odium and contempt that such a pro- 
ceeding must reasonably be expected to entail, he launched 
upon the public, in his long poem of " Woman," a cargo of 
such unquestionable nonsense, such commonplace vapidities 
of adulation, such high pretensions of imbecility, such un- 
grammatical flourishes and touches of the bathetic, and 
such a prolonged droning singsong, uninspired even by the 
abortive life of one vigorous absurdity, — a production, in 
fine, which must be pronounced, in its parts, and as a whole, 
to be without parallel throughout the entire range of modern 
literature. 

But the result has been quite as wonderful as the poem. 
Mr. Montgomery must console his bosom by the proud con- 
sciousness of having meant to act a noble part. With much 
regret we have to record the total failure of his esoteric 
scheme. We have described what he intended, and we 
have honestly, and pretty fully, expressed our opinion of 
how he carried out his design in the poem of " Woman." 
But it was misunderstood. For the public, (or at least an 
immense number of readers,) not perceiving his drift, and 
not feeling the force of contrast, as the strategical martyr 
had intended, actually received the thing in sober earnest — 
as a poem ! Its elaborate stupidity and matchless nonsense 
were all thrown away ! The effort to exhaust with a mix- 
ture of folly and emptiness, was defeated. The labour to 
disgust had been in rain — and Robert Montgomery, with 



S39 ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 

"Woman" under his arm, was admitted into the public 
Temple of the Muses, and again crowned as ' a Pcet !' 

But not alone did the greatly humorous, though de- 
feated Strategist enter this public Temple. Behind him 
came a crowd shouting his praises, and around him was a 
crowd, shouting in praise of his poetry; and in front of him 
was a crowd who bore placards, showing that his poems had 
gone through more than four or five editions for every one 
edition of the works of such fellows as Wordsworth, or 
Coleridge, or Tennyson. But among this latter crowd 
there also appeared Mr. Punch ! This well-known person- 
age had a very large mirror under his short cloak. Cour- 
teously pointing his toe, as he approached the sacred Penman, 
he eloquently expressed his admiration of the man, who, 
after waving his white cambric handkerchief from a pulpit 
till the tears ran in rivulets all round, should yet have dis- 
covered another equally successful trick of oratory undet 
circumstances where it was impossible to display the ring 
upon his little finger. Mr. Punch then coughed slightly — 
gave his mirror a rounding polish with the corner of his 
cloak, and addressing the crowds as the Public, he turned 
the mirror towards them, and politely requested to be in- 
formed what peculiar impression upon their thoughts they 
derived from the intelligent object they contemplated 
therein ? 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



" Always there stood before him, night and day. 
Of wayward vary-colored circumstance 
The imperi-hable presences serene, 
Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound ; 
Dim shadows but unwaning presences 
Four-faced to four corners of the sky : 
And yet again, three shadows froniing one, 
One forward, one respectant, three but one ; 
And yet agiin, again and evermore, 
For the two first were not, but only seemed. 
One shadow in the midst of a great light. 
One reflex from eternity on time, 
One mighty countenance of perfect calm. 
Awful with most invariable eyes." 

Tennyson. TheMystic. 

" Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things 
are at risk. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow ; 
there is not any literary reputation, nor the so-called eternal 1 names of fame, that may 
not be revised and condemned. ***** He claps wings to the sides of all the 
solid old lumber of the world." 

Emerson. Essay on Circles. 

According to the view of the microcosmits^ what is said of 
the world itself, may be said of every individual in it • and 
what is said of the individual, may be predicated of the 
world. Now, the individual mind has been compared to a 
prisoner in a dark room, or in a room which would be dark 
but for the windows of the same, meaning the senses, in a 
figure; nothing being in the mind without the mediation of 
the senses, as Locke held, — " except," as I-eibnitz acutely 
added in modification, " the mind itself." Thus is it with 
the individual, and thus with the general humanity. Were 
it not for the Something from without, and the Something 
within, which are both Revelations, we should sit on the 
floor of our dark dungeon, between its close stifling walls, 
gnawing vainly with the teeth of the mind, at the chains we 
wear. But conclusions which genius has leapt successfully, 
and science proved, have come to aid us. It is well to talk 



334 THOMAS CARLTLE. 

of the progress of the public mind. The public mind, — that 
is, the average intelligence of the many, — never does make 
progress, except by imbibing great principles from great 
men, which, after long and frequent reiteration, become part 
of the moral sense of a people. The educators are the true 
and only movers. Progress implies the most active of ener 
gies, such as genius is, such as science is : and general pro 
gress implies, and indeed essentially consists of, individual 
progresses, men of genius, and other good teachers, working. 
A Ulysses must pass with the first goat, — ca!l him Nobody, 
or by his right name. And to return to our first figure, — 
what the senses are to the individual mind, men of genius 
are to the general mind. Scantily assigned by Providence 
for necessary ends, one original thinker strikes a window 
out here, and another there ; wielding the mallet sharply, 
and leaving it to others to fashion grooves and frames, and 
complete advantage into convenience. 

That Mr. Carlyle is one of the men of genius thus re- 
ferred to, and that he has knocked out his window from the 
blind wall of his century, we may add without any fear of 
contradiction. We may say, too, that it is a window to the 
east : and that some men complain of a certain bleakness in 
the wind which enters at it, when they should rather con- 
gratulate themselves and him on the aspect of the new sun 
beheld through it, the orient hope of which he has so dis- 
covered to their eyes. And let us take occasion to observe 
here, and to bear in memory through every subsequent re- 
mark we may be called upon to make, that it has not been 
his object to discover to us any specific prospect — not the 
mountain to the right, nor the oak-wood to the left, nor the 
river which runs down between, — but the sun, which ren- 
ders all these visible. 

When " the most thinking people" had, at the sound of 
all sorts of steam-engines, sufficiently worshipped that idol 
of utilitarianism which Jeremy Bentham, the king, had set 
up, and which Thomas Carlyle, the transcendentalist, and 
many others, who never read a page of Bentham's works, 
have resolved to narrow to their own misconceptions of this 
philosopher — the voice of a prophet was heard praying three 
times a day, with magnanimous reiteration, towards Jerusa- 
lem — towards old Jerusalem, be it observed ; and also to- 
wards the place of sun-rising for ultimate generations. And 



THOMAS CARLTLE. 335 

the voice spoke a strange language — nearly as strange as 
Bentham's own, and as susceptible of translation into English. 
Not English, by any means, the critics said it spoke ; nor 
even German, nor Greek; although partaking considerably 
more of the two last than of English ; but more of Saxon than 
either, we humbly beg to add. Yet, if the grammarians and 
public teachers could not measure it out to pass as classic 
English, after the measure of Swift or Addison, or even of 
Bacon and Milton — if new words sprang gauntly in it from 
savage derivatives, and rushed together in outlandisli com- 
binations — if the collocation was distortion, wandering wildly 
up and down — if the comments were every where in a heap, 
like the " pots and pans" of Bassano, classic or not, English 
or not ; it was certainly a true language — a language " /jfQo- 
nwv (hS^Qc'nioyv ;" the significant articulation of a living soul : 
God's breath was in the vowels of it. And the clashing of 
these harsh compounds at last drew the bees into assembly, 
each murmuring his honey-dream. And the hearers who 
stood longest to listen, became sensible of a still grave music 
issuing, like smoke, from the clefts of the rock. If it was 
not "style" and "classicism," it was something better — it 
was soul-language. There was a divinity at the shaping of 
these rough-hewn periods. 

We dwell the longer upon the construction of Mr. Car- 
lyle's sentences, because of him it is pre-eminently true, that 
the speech is the man. All powerful writers will leave, more 
or less, the pressure of their individuality on the medium of 
their communication with the public. Even the idiomatic 
writers, who trust their thoughts to a customary or conven- 
tional phraseology, and thus attain to a recognized level 
perfection in the medium, at the expense of being less in- 
stantly incisive and expressive, (according to an obvious 
social analogy,) have each an individual aspect. But the in- 
dividuality of this writer is strongly pronounced. It is 
graven — like the Queen's arrow on the poker and tongs of 
her national prisons — upon the meanest word of his utter- 
ance. He uses no moulds in his modelling, as you may see 
by the impression of his thumb-nail upon the clay. He 
throws his truth with so much vehemence, that the print of 
the palm of his hand is left on it. Let no man scoff at the 
language of Carlyle — for if it forms part of his idiosyncracy, 
his idiosyncracy forms part of his truth ; — and let no man 



336 THOMAS CAItLTLB. 

say that we recommend Carlylisms — for it is obvious, from 
our very argument, that, in the mouth of an imitator, they 
would unlearn their uses, and be conventional as Addison, 
or a mere chaos of capitals, and compounds, and broken 
language. 

We have named Carlyle in connection with Bentham, and 
we believe that you will find in " your philosophy," no better 
antithesis for one than is the other. There is as much re- 
semblance between them as is necessary for antithetic un- 
likeness. Each headed a great movement among thinking 
men; and each made a language for himself to speak with ; 
and neither of them originated what they taught. Bentham's 
work was done by systematizing; Carlyle's, by reviving and 
reiterating. And as, from the beginning of the world, the 
two great principles of matter and spirit have combated — 
whether in man's personality, between the flesh and the soul ; 
or in his speculativeness, between the practical and the ideal ; 
or in his mental expression, between science and poetry — 
Bentham and Carlyle assumed to lead the double van on 
opposite sides. Bentham gave an impulse to the material 
energies of his age, of the stuflf of which he was himself 
made — while Carlyle threw himself before the crushing 
chariots, not in sacrifice, but deprecation; "Go aside — 
there is a spirit even in the icheels !" In brief, and to take 
up that classification of virtues made by Proclus and the later 
Platonists — Bentham headed such as were 7ioAtT/x«/, Carlyle 
exalts that which is Tshany./j, venerant and religious virtue. 

Every reader may not be acquainted, as every thinker 
should, with the Essays of R. W. Emerson, of Concord, 
Massachusetts. He is a follower of Mr. Carlyle, and in the 
true spirit ; that is, no imitator, but a worker out of his own 
thoughts. To one of the English editions of this volume, 
Mr. Carlyle has written a short Preface, in which the follow- 
ing gaunt and ghastly, grotesque and graphic passage occurs ; 
and which, moreover, is characteristic and to our immediate 
point. 

" In a word, while so many Benthamisms, Socialisms, Fourierisms, professing to 
have no soul, go staggering and lowing like monstrous moon-calves, the product of a 
heavy-laden moon-struck age ; and in this same baleful ' twelfth hour of the night ' 
even galvanic Puseyiams, as we say, are visible, and dancings of the sheeted dead, — 
shall not any voice of a living man be welcome to us, even because it is alive." 

That the disciples of Bentham, and Robert Owen, and 
Fourier, should be accused of professing to have no soul, 



THOMAS CAHLTLE. 337 

because their main object has been to ameliorate the bodily 
condition of mankind; or that an indifference to poetry and 
the fine arts, except as light amusements, to be taken alter- 
nately with gymnastics and foot-ball, should be construed 
into a denial of the existence of such things, we do not con- 
sider fair dealing. True, they all think of first providintr 
for the body ; and looking around at the enormous amount 
of human suffering, from physical causes, it is no great won- 
der that they chiefly devote their efforts to that amelioration. 
A man who is starving is not in a fit state for poetry, nor 
even for prayer. Neither is a man fit for prayer, who is dis- 
eased, or ragged, or unclean — except the one prayer for that 
very amelioration which the abused philosophers of the body 
seek to obtain for him. With respect, however, to the dis- 
ciples of Bentham, Owen, and Fourier, it is no wonder that 
he should be at utter variance. No great amount of love 
" is lost between them." Not that Carlyle reads or knows 
much of their systems; and not that they read or know any 
thing of his writings. In these natural antipathies all philo- 
sophers are in an equal state of unreasonableness. Or shall 
we rather call it wisdom, to follow the strong instincts of 
nature, without any prevaricating reasonings upon the in-felt 
fact. Carlyle could make little good out of their systems, if 
he read them; and they could make nothing at all of his 
writings. The opposite parties might force themselves to 
meet gravely, with hard lines of the efforts of understanding 
in their faces, and all manner of professions of dispassionate 
investigation and mutual love of truth — and they would clash 
foreheads at the first step, and part in fury ! " The Body is 
the first thing to be helped !" cry the Benthamites, Owenites, 
Fourierites — loudly echoed by Lord Ellenborough and the 
Bishop of London — "Get more Soul !" cries Carlyle, " and 
help yourselves !" 

But the wants of the body will win the day — the move- 
ments of the present age show that plainly. The inmiortal 
soul can well afford to wait till its case is repaired. The 
death-groans of humanity must first be humanely silenced. 
More Soul, do we crave for the world 1 The world has long 
had a sphere-full of unused Soul in it, before Christ, and 
since. If Plato and Socrates, and Michael Angelo and 
Raphael, and Shakspeare and Milton, and Handel and 
Hadyn, and all the great poets, philosophers, and music-ma- 



338 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

gicians, that have left their Souls among us, have still render- 
ed us no protection against starvation, or the disease and 
damage of the senses and brain by reason of want of food, in 
God's name let us now think a little of the Body — the mor- 
tal case and medium of his Image. What should we think 
of a philosopher who went to one of our manufacturing towns 
where the operatives work from sixteen to eighteen hours 
a day, and are nevertheless badly clothed, dirty, and without 
sufficient food — and to whom the philosopher, as a remedial 
measure, suggested that they should get more soul? Many 
at this hour are slowly, or rapidly, dying from want. Can 
we tell them to think of their souls? No — give the fire 
some more fuel, and then e\\)eci more light, and the warmth 
of an aspiring flame. That these two extremes of body and 
soul philosophy, may, as Emerson declares, involve one and 
the same principle, viz. the welfare and progress of mankind, 
may be true ; but at present the poor principle is " between 
two stools" — or between the horns of a dilemma, not inaptly 
represented by Mr. Carlyle's misapplied figure of the stagger- 
ing moon-calf 

We have observed that Carlyle is not an originator ; and 
although he is a man of genius and original mind, and al- 
though he has knocked out his window in the wall of his 
century — and we know it, — we must repeat that, in a strict 
sense, he is not an originator. Perhaps our figure of the 
window might have been more correctly stated as the re- 
opening of an old window, long bricked up or encrusted 
over, — and probably this man of a strong mallet, and suffi- 
cient right hand, thought the recovery of the old window, a 
better and more glorious achievement, than the making of 
many new windows. His office certainly is not to exchange 
"new lamps for old ones." His quality of a "gold-reviver" 
is the nearest to a novel acquirement. He tells us what we 
knew, but had forgotten, or refused to remember; and his 
reiterations startle and astonish us like informations. We 
" have souls," he tells us. Who doubted it in the nine- 
teenth century ; yet who thought of it in the roar of the 
steam-engine? He tells us that work is every man's duty. 
Who doubted that among the factory-masters? — or amono- 
the charity-children, when spelling from the catechism of 
the national church, that they will " do their duty in the 
state of life to which it shall please God to call them?" Yet 



THOMAS GARLYLE. 339 

how deep and like a new sound, do the words " soul," 
" work," " duty," strike down upon the flushing anvils of 
the age, till the whole age vibrates ! And again he tells us, 
" Have faith." Why, did we not know that we must have 
" faith 1" Is there a religious teacher in the land who does 
not repeat from God's revelation, year by year, day by day — 
Have faith? or is there a quack in the land who does not 
call to his assistance the energy of" faith?" And ao-ain — 
" Truth is a good thing." Is that new? Is it not written 
in the theories of the moralist, and of the child ? — yes, and 
in the moral code of Parliament men, and other honourable 
gentlemen, side by side with bribery and corruption, and 
the " melancholy necessity " of the duellist's pistol and 
twelve paces? Yet we thrill at the words, as if some new 
thunder of divine instruction ruffled the starry air, — as if an 
angel's foot sounded down it, step by step, coming with a 
message. 

Thus it is obvious that Mr. Carlyle is not an originator, 
but a renewer, although his medium is highly original ; and 
it remains to us to recognize that he is none the less impor- 
tant teacher on that account, and that there was none the 
less necessity for his teaching. " The great fire-heart," as he 
calls it, of human nature, may burn too long without stirring; 
burn inwardly, cake outwardly, and sink deeply into its own 
ashes ; and to emancipate the flame clearly and brightly, it 
is necessary to stir it up strongly from the lowest bar. To 
do this, by whatever form of creation and illustration, is the 
aim and end of all poetry of a high order, — this, — to re- 
sume human nature from its beginning, and to return to first 
principles of thought and first elements of feeling ; this, — 
to dissolve from eye and ear the film of habit and convention, 
and open a free passage for beauty and truth, to gush in 
upon unencrusted perceptive faculties : for poetry, like re- 
licrion, should make a man a child again in purity and una- 
dulterated perceptivity. 

No poet yearns more earnestly to make the inner life 
shine out than does Carlyle. No poet regrets more sorrow- 
fully, with a look across the crowded and crushing intellects 
of the world, — that the dust rising up from men's energies, 
should have blinded them to the brightness of their instincts, 

and that understanding (according to the German view) 

should take precedence of a yet more spiritualized faculty. 



340 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

He is reproached with not being practical. *' Mr. Carlyle," 
they say, " is not practical." But he is practical for many 
intents of the inner life, and teaches well the Doing of Being. 
" What would he make of us?" say the complainers. " He 
reproaches us with the necessities of the age, he taunts us 
with the very progress of time, his requirements are so im- 
possible that they make us despair of the republic." And 
this is true. If we were to give him a sceptre, and cry, 
*' Rule over us," nothing could exceed the dumb, motionless, 
confounded figure he would stand : his first words, on re 
covering himself, would be, " Ye have souls ! work — be- 
lieve." He would not know what else to think, or say for 
us, and not at all what to do with us. He would pluck, ab- 
sently, at the sceptre, for the wool of the fillet to which his 
hands were accustomed ; for he is no king, except in his 
own peculiar sense of a prophet and priest-king, — and a 
vague prophet, be it understood. His recurrence to first prin- 
ciples and elements of action, is in fact, so constant and pas- 
sionate, that his attention is not free for the development of 
actions. The hand is the gnomon by which he judges of 
the soul ; and little cares he for the hand otherwise than as 
a spirit-index. He will not wash your hands for you, be 
sure, however he may moralize on their blackness. Whether 
he writes history, or' philosophy, or criticism, his perpetual 
appeal is to those common elements of humanity which it 
is his object to cast into relief and light. His work on the 
French Revolution is a great poem with this same object; 
— a return upon the life of humanity, and an eliciting of the 
pure material and initial element of life, out of the fire and 
torment of it. The work has fitly been called graphical 
and picturesque ; but it is so hy force of being philosophical 
and poetical. For instance, where the writer says that 
" Marat was in a cradle like the rest of us," it is no touch 
of rhetoric, though it may seem so, but a resumption of the 
philosophy of the whole work. Life suggests to him the 
cradle, the grave, and eternity, with scarce a step between. 
jn that brief interval he sometimes exhorts that you should 
work; and sometimes it would appear as if he exhorted you 
not to work at all, but to sit still and ihink. He is daz- 
zled by the continual contemplation of a soul beating its tiny 
wings amidst the pale vapours of Infinity. Why, such a man 
(not speaking it irreverently) is not fit to live. He is only 



THOMAS CARLTLB. 341 

fit to be where his soul most aims at. He sinks our corporal 
condition, with all its wants, and says, " Be a man!" A 
dead-man with a promoted spirit seems our only chance in 
this philosophy. 

Carlyle has a great power of re-production, and can 
bring back his man from the grave of years, not like a ghost, 
but with all his vital flesh as well as his thoughts about him. 
The reproduced man thinks, feels, and acts like himself at 
his most characteristic climax — and the next instant the 
Magician pitches him into Eternity, saying, " It all comes 
to that." But his power over the man, while he lasts, is 
entire, and the individual is almost always dealt with as in 
time-present. His scenes of by-gone years, are all acted 
now, before your eyes. By contrast Carlyle often displays 
truth ; from the assimilations in the world, he wrings the 
product of the differences; and by that niasterly method of 
individualizing persons, which is remarkable in his histori- 
cal writing, the reader sometimes attains what Carlyle him- 
self seems to abhor, viz. a broad generalization of principles. 
His great forte and chief practice is individualization. And 
when he casts his living heart into an old monk's diary, and, 
with the full warm gradual throbs of genius and power, 
throws out the cowled head into a glory ; the reason is not, 
as some disquieted readers have hinted, that Mr. Carlyle re- 
grets the cloistral ages, and defunct superstitions, — the rea- 
son is not, that Mr. Carlyle is too poetical to be philosoph- 
ical, but that he is so poetical as to be philosophical in 
essence when treating of things. The reason is, that Mr. 
Carlyle recognizes, in a manner that no mere historian ever 
does, but as the true poet always will do, — the same human 
nature through every cycle of individual and social exist- 
ence. He is a poet also, by his insight into the activity of 
moral causes working through the intellectual agencies of 
the mind. He is also a poet in the mode. He conducts 
his aro-ument with no philosophical arrangements and mar- 
shalling of " for and against;" his paragraphs come and go 
as they please. He proceeds, like a poet, rather by analogy 
and subtle association than by uses of logic. His illustra- 
tions not only illustrate, but bear a part in the reasoning : — 
the images standing out, like grand and beautiful caryatides, 
to sustain the heights of the argument. Of his language we 
have spoken. Somewhat too slow, broken up, and involved 
for eloquence, and too individual to be classical, it is yet 



34^ THOMAS eARLTI.E. 

the language of a gifted painter and poet, the colour of 
whose soul eats itself into the words. And magnificent are 
the splendours they display, even as the glooms. Equally 
apt are they for the sad liveries of pain and distress, and 
certainly for the rich motleys of the humorous grotesque. 
His pictures aud conjurings-up of this latter kind — chiefly 
from his original faculty, and method of producing the thing 
alive and before you, but also by contrast with his usual 
thoughtful, ardent, and exacting style — are inexpressibly 
ludicrous. His Latin epitaph on Count Zahdarm, in 
" Sartor Resartus," and his account of the courtier whose 
lower habiliments were stuffed with bran, to look broad and 
fashionable, but who unfortunately sat down upon a rail, are 
exquisite. These things are often additionally ludicrous 
from his giving the actors a dry, historical shape, while the 
scene itself is utterly absurd and extravagant, but amidst 
which the narrator seldom appears to move a muscle of his 
face. It is by reason of this humorous dryness that we 
sometimes do not know if he would really have us laugh at 
the thing. 

Moreover, it must be stated, that the Prophet of the 
Circle hath displayed a cloven tongue ! — and peradventure 
the sincerity of his mode of expression in several works may 
at times have been questionable. The most orthodox dog- 
matists have often applauded his sayings about a Church, 
when it has been plain to the initiated readers of his books 
that he meant no such temple as that, but some untithed 
field, with a soul in it. In like manner, in his remarks on 
tolerance in his "Hero-worship," he seems to guard himself 
strongly against imputations of latitudinarianism ; whereby 
the highly orthodox commend him as very proper, and the 
latitudinarians laugh in their sleeves — he does it so well. It 
is the same in politics. Radicalism is scoffed at; and the 
next page lets loose a sweeping radical principle, involving 
perhaps no small destructiveness for its attainment. On the 
other side, Tories are gratified by his declarations of rever- 
ence for old things, though they may be placed, in order to 
be the better seen, upon the top of Vesuvius; and the more 
assimilative and shapely Conservative smiles to hear him 
speak aloud for the conservation of all things which are 
good and excellent. The book on " Past and Present," 
however, settles most of these doubts. It is all over with 
him among the high chureh party ; and he laughs as he 



THOMAS CARLYLi:. 343 

thinks. But have any of the other parties got him ? Not 
so: he was born to be an independent Thinker; it is his 
true mission ; it is the best thing he can do, and we have no 
doubt but it is just the thing he will do. 

We think " Sartor Resnrtus " the finest of Mr. Carlyle'a 
works in conception, and as a whole. In execution he is 
always great; and for graphic vigour and quantity of sug- 
gestive thought, matchless : but the idea, in this book, of 
uncovering the world — taking off all the clothes — the cloaks 
and outsides — is admirable. His finest work, as a matter 
of political philosophy, is imdoubtedly his " Past and 
Present." In this work he is no longer the philosopher of 
the circle. He allows the world a chance. 

The incentive to progression in the great family of man- 
kind, is usually considered to be the desire for happiness, 
or the prospect of bettering our condition by struggling 
onward to a given point : but the necessity of progression, 
as well as the incentive, are perhaps equally attributable to 
another cause. It may be that Dissatisfaction is the great 
mover ; and that this feeling is implanted as a restless agent 
to act for ever upon us, so as to urge us onward for ever in 
our ascending cycles of being. This we should conceive to 
be Mr. Carlyle's impression. He does not say so, we 
believe ; nor perhaps does he decidedly think so; neverthe- 
less we should say the Philosophy of Dissatisfaction formed 
a principal element in his many-sided unsystematic view of 
the struggles of mortality. 

The book entitled "Chartism" was a recognition of 
this principle of dissatisfaction, as manifested by the violent 
mental and physical forces of a number of enraged sufferers. 
But we pass through the book as through a journey of many 
ways and many objects, brilliantly illuminated and pictured 
in every direction, but without arriving at any clear conclu- 
sion, and without gathering any fresh information on the 
main subject, during the progress. By his not very clear 
argument about " might " and " right," he has enabled any 
despot to show some sort of reasoning for any violent act. 

His grand remedial proposals for all the evils of the 
country, by "Universal Education" and "General Emi- 
gration," are rather an evasion of Chartism and its causes ; 
for the Chartists say, " We have enough education to see 
the injustice of people being starved in a land of plenty ; and 
as for eminrration, we do not choose to go. Go yourselves." 



344 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

" Past and Present " evidences a perception of greater 
wants than these Education and Emigration plans. 

" True, all turns on your Beady Reckoner being moderately correct, — being not 
Insupportably incorrect ! A Ready Reckoner which has led to distinct entries in your 
Ledger such as these : — ' Creditur, an English people, by fifteen hundred years of 
good Labour ; a.mi Debtor to lodging in enchanted Poor-Lavv Bastilles: Creditor by 
conquering the largest Empire the Sun ever saw ; and Debtor to Donothingisni imd 
"Impossible," written on all departments of the government thereof: Creditor 
by mountains of gold ingots earned ; and Debtor to the Bread purchasable by them :' 
such Ready-Reckoner, methinks, is beginning to be suspect ; nay, is ceasing, and has 
ceased, to be suspect ! Such Ready-Reckoner is a Solecism in Eastcheap ; and must, 
whatever be the press of business, and will and shall be rectified a little ! Business 
can go on no longer with iU" 

Past and Present, p. 220. 

The " History of the French Revolution," is considered 
by most people to be Mr. Carlyle's greatest work ; not as a 
history, we presume, nor because it is in three volumes, but 
chiefly because it is thought to contain a more abundant and 
varied display of his powers than any of his other works. — 
We can offer no remarks about it so good as those we shall 
extract from an article written by Joseph Mazzini,* which 
we consider to be one of the most profound, masterly, 
and earnest-minded critical essays that was ever written. — 
We shoul i also add, that it is full of that admiration and 
respect which are due to a writer of Mr. Carlyle's genius 
and character. 

" By that Revolution the spiritof emancipation became incarnate in a people, and 
gave battle ; and the battle was long, bloody, destructive, full of great and cruel 
things, of Titan-like phrenzies and achievements. * * * * Have extinct gene- 
rations nothing more to yield us than an emotion of pity ? * * * * The historian 
has a noMe and great mission ; but it is not by making us weep over all that falls ; it 
is not by piacing before us, fragment by fragment, detail by detail, the mere material 
fact, the succession of crises by which this world of the dead, with their immediate 
effects, have passed away ; — above all, it is not by dragging forth, at every instant, 
from the midst of this collective and complex world, the single wretched and feeble 
individual, and setting him in presence of the profound ' mystery of time,' before 
* unfathomable darkness,' to terrify him with the enigma of existence — it is not so 
that this mission can be fulfilled. * * * * Before our eyes, as before his, in tho 
midst of a kind of phantasmagorial vortex, capable of giving the strongest head a 
dizziness, pass in speedy flight the defunct heroes of the poem. What are they going 
to do ? We know not : the poet explains them not, but he laments over them all, 
whoever they may be. What have they done .' Where are they going? We know 
not, but whatever they may have done, time has now devoured them, and onward 
they pass over the slippery gore one after another, rolling into night, the great night 
of Goethe, the bottomless and nameless abyss ; and the voice of the poet is heard 
crying to the loiterers, * Rest not — continue not— forward to thy doom !' When all 
are gone, when escaped, as from the nightmare, out of the midst of the turmoil, you 
look around to catch some trace of their passage, to see if they have left aught behind 
them that can furnish the solution of the enigma, — you have only a vacuum. Three 
words alone remain as the summary of their history — the Bastille — the Constitution — 
the Guillotine. The Constitution, the object of every effort, is placed between a 
prison and a scaffold. * * * * And is this all .' There is another thing. Twenty- 
nine millions of beings rose not as one man, and the half of the population of Europe 
Ehook not at their appeal, for a word, a shadow, and empty formula. * * * * He 

* Msnthly Chronicle, No. XXIII., January, 1840. 



THOMAS CARLVLE. 345 

has doMC no more than pive us tablcuuz, wonderful in execution, but nothing in con- 
ception, without connection, without ;i bearing. His book is the French Revolution 
illustrated — illustrated by the hand of a master, we know, but one from whom we ex- 
pected a different labour. * * * * The eternal mirsus et recursus inexorably 
devours ideas, creeds, daring, and devotedness. The Infinite takes, to him, the form 
of Nihilation. It has a glance of pity for every act of enthusiasm, a smile, stamped 
with skepticism, for every act of great devotedness to ideas. Generalities are odious 
to it ; detail is its favourite occupation, and it there amuses itself as if seeking to lay 
at rest its inconsolable cares." 

We add the following, as being equally applicable to 
certain peculiarities in other works of Mr. Carlyle. 

" He has lost the sentiment of human grandeur ; he has found himself placed 
between the infinite and the individual, catching at every instant from this contrast, 
a kind of terror of the former, and of pity, nothing more than pity, for the latter. So, 
having no higher value to give to the idea, he has been driven, in order not to exhaust 
himself at the very outset, to give so much the more to the impression : he becomes 
passive. Every thing of a nature to strike vividly on the senses has been seized by 
him, and he has handed down the image to his readers. * * * * 

" It is to Goethe, too much revered by Mr. Carlyle, that we owe this tinge of irony 
which in this book often supervenes * ^ those traits of mockery * * above all, 
that disposition to crush man by contrasting him with the Infinite. As if it were not 
precisely from the consciousness of this Infinite environing him, and that yet pre- 
vents him not from acting, that man is great; — as if the eternity that; is before us, 
after us, and around us, were not also within us." 

Mazziiti. 

This unfair method of dealing with humanity, this con- 
tinual disposition to place man at a disadvantage of the most 
extreme kind, viz., by comparison with space and time, and 
the miraculous round of things, constitutes a prominent fea- 
ture in the philosophy of dissatisfaction. It is always sure 
of its blow, and its humiliating superiority; for who can 
stand before it? We might quote to Mr. Carlyle the words 
addressed to Mephistopheles — " Seems nothing ever right 
to you on earth ?" One cannot imagine any thing done by 
human hands which would be likely to give Mr. Carlyle 
much satisfaction. He would be pretty sure to say, at best, 
" Work on, and we shall see what else will come of it!" — 
Or, more probably, to quote again from " Faust," he would 
remind us that " Man must err, till he has ceased to strug- 
gle." Hence he would have us sit quietly and be silent. 
He applauds inactivity and silence ; but he also applauds 
work : he says man must work, and exhorts every one to do 
his utmost. These contradictions, however, have a central 
meaning, which we shall attempt to explain. The dissatis- 
faction, the unhopefulness, and the melancholy that pervade 
his works are attributable to the sam.e causes. 

For the practical dissatisfaction exhibited in Mr. Car- 
jyle's works, we would offer the following elucidation. We 
think that he so continually negatives the value of work, de- 
nies the use and o-ood of doino- things, and smiles bitterly or 

10 



346 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

laughs outright at human endeavour, because he considers 
that so long as the Competitive system — the much applaud- 
ed " fair competition" — be the rule of social working life, 
instead of Co-operation, there can be made no actual step in 
advance to a better condition of things. So long as one class, 
whether in trade, politics, art, or literature, is always striv- 
ing to oppose, pull back, counteract, or plunder the other, 
no permanent good can supervene. The greatest remedial 
measure which is sure to let in an overflowing stream of 
good, he laughs at, — because, after all the long labours of 
the contest for it, he sees in imagination a number of side- 
trenches cut to let it off before it reaches the assumed des- 
tination, or means taken to let it off after its arrival, by other 
channels. By the terms *' hero" and " heroic," he means 
true wisdom and moral strength; and the only hope he sees 
for this world, is that one man should rule over each coun- 
try, eminent for his heroic worth, because chosen by a peo- 
ple who have at length become themselves not un-heroic, 
and therefore capable of knowing true greatness, and of 
choosing their greatest man. 

So much for his practical and political dissatisfaction. 
For his contradictory tone concerning all work, as unavail- 
ing and yet a necessity, let him answer for himself: 

" Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing, spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane ; 
haste stormfully across tlie astonished eaith ; then plunge again into the Inane. 
Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage : can the earth, 
which is but dead and a vision, resist spirits which have reality and are alive.' 
On the hardest adamant, some foot print of us is stamped in ; the Inst Rear of the 
host will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence ? O, heaven, whither ? Sense 
knows not ; P'aith knows not ; only that it is through Mvstery to Mystery, from God 
to God. 

' V\''e are such stuff 

As dreams are made of, and our little Life 

Is rounded with a sleep.' " 

A familiar illustration sometimes helps a philosophical 
difficulty. The following story, which is highly characteris- 
tic of the parties, and is nevertheless of a kind that may be 
told without violating the trustfulness of private intercourse, 
will very well answer our present purpose. Leigh Hunt 
and Carlyle were once present among a small party of 
equally well-known men. It chanced that the conversation 
rested with these two — both first rate talkers, and the others 
sat well pleased to listen. Leigh Hunt had said something 
about the Islands of the Biest, or El Dorado, or the Millen- 
nium, and was flowing on in his bright and hopeful way, 
when Carlyle dropt some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt's 



THOMAS CARLYI.E. 347 

pleasant stream, and banked it up with philosophical doubts 
and objections at every interval of the speaker's joyous pro- 
gress. But the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his over- 
flowing anticipations, nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite 
demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed 
and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them 
against each other, as the philosopher of Hopefulness and of 
the Unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready 
wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundi- 
ty, that extensive knowledge of books, and character, with 
their ready application in argument or illustration, and that 
perfect ease and good-nature, which distinguish each of 
these men. The opponents were so well matched that it 
was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. But 
the night was far advanced, and the party broke up. 
They all sallied forth ; and leaving the close room, the can- 
dles and the arguments behind them, suddenly found them- 
selves in presence of a most brilliant star-light nicrht. 
They all looked up. " Now," thought Hunt, " Carlyle's 
done for ! — he can have no answer to that!" "There!" 
shouted Hunt, " look up there ! look at that glorious har- 
mony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of hope 
in the soul of man " Carlyle looked up. They all remain- 
ed silent to hear what he would say. They began to think 
he was silenced at last — he was a mortal man. But out of 
that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch 
accent. And who, on earth, could have anticipated what 

the voice said? "Eh! it's a sad sight!" Hunt sat 

down on a stone step. They all laughed — then looked very 
thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, in- 
stead of surrendering itself up to the influence? Again 
they laughed— then bade each other good night, and be- 
took themselves homeward with slow and serious pace. 
There might be some reason for sadness, too. That bril- 
liant firmament probably contained infinite worlds, each full 
of strufjglincr and suft'ering beings — of beings who had to 
die — for life in the stars implies that those bright worlds 
should also be full of graves; but all that life, like ours, 
knowing not whence it came, nor whither it goeth, and the 
brilliant Universe in its great Movement having, perhaps, no 
more certain knowledge of itself, nor of its ultimate destina- 
tion, than hath one of the suffering specks that compose this 
small spot we inherit. 



HENRY TAYLOR 

AND 

THE AUTHOR OF "FESTUS." 



" Hand in hand at wisdom's shrine, 

Beauty with trulh I strive to join, 

And grave Assent with glad Applause ; 

To paint the story of the soul, 

And Plato's vision to controul 

By Verulamian laws." 

Akekside. 
"But as we, in our isle imprisoned, 
Where cattle only, and divers dogs are bred, 
The precious unicorns, strange monsters call, — 
So thought he sweets strange, that had none at all." 

Donne, Elegy 4. 

" Great thoughts, like great deeds, need 

No trumpet. ****** 

But set thyself ahout it, as the sea 

About earth, lashing at it day and night ; 

And leave the stamp of thine own soul in it, 

As thorough as the fossil flower in clay." 

Additional Scene to " Fcstus." 
" Yea, copyists shall die, spark out and out. 

Minds whicli Combine and Make, alone can tell 

The bearings and the workings of all thing.s 

In and upon each other." 

Ibid. 

The unrepressed vigour of imagination, — and the grace- 
ful display of philosophical thought; the splendour of great 
and original imagery, — and the level dignity of the operations 
of the understanding ; the passion of poetry, — and the 
sound sense of poetry ; are proposed to be discussed in'jthis 
essay. The calm philosophy of poetry, iii its addresses to 
the understanding and the domestic affections, now holds 
the ascendency ; but as the fresh and energetic spirit of the 
present age advances, a contest is certain to take place in 
the fields of Literature on the above questions. The soon- 
er, therefore, the battle is fought out, the better : and to 
this end, the poetical antagonisms shall at once be brought 
into collision. Several of the parties being personal friends, 
they will not be so much surprised at this summary cry "to 
arms," as that very large portion of the public who fancy 
that the periods of poetry are all over with us in England. 



HENRY TAYLOR, ETC. 349 

A peculiar principle, and a peculiar style, are the first 
things to be considered in this business. If the absence of 
enthusiasm, or the total subjugation of it by the intellect; 
and if the absence of a power to call up imagery ; or the 
levelling down of imagery to a barren regularity, be now 
considered as the true principle and style for the greatest 
poetry, then all our great poets of by-gone ages have writ- 
ten in error, and must no longer be accounted great, except 
in the light of barbarians, even as Pope and Dr. Johnson re- 
garded the men of the Elizabethan age. But this will nev- 
er be admitted again, for the public mind has outgrown all 
such teaching. The attempt, therefore, seems to be to 
bring back the same impression or opinion, without verb- 
ally stating it, — and, by making an exception in favour of 
Shakspeare, to m.erge all the glories of his poetical contem- 
poraries in a generalized idea of extravagance and disorder. 

Most readers will recollect that Wordsworth has prefix- 
ed to his beautiful poem, " To the Daisy," some lines from 
Withers, which either originated or encouraged in him the 
principle by which the descriptive part of his poetry is so 
peculiarly influenced ; — 

" That from every thing I saw 
I could some instruction draw. 
And raise pleasure to the height, 
Through the meanest object's sight," &c. 

Withers. 

The disposition to misuse an extreme principle has for 
some time been perceptible. The great poet Wordsworth 
has said how much to his mind was " the meanest flower 
that blows." No doubt but it was much to kirn; and no 
doubt there is nothing mean, essentially, in nature. But 
when a number of other poets say — "Well, and the meanest 
flower is just as much to tis !" — we cannot believe that they 
are sincere, for the original impression is not theirs, and no 
one, by mere imitation, can have " thoughts that lie too 
deep for tears." The universal application of a sentiment, 
cannot imply a universal sensibility. (It should here be un- 
derstood that we are not at present alluding to either of the 
gentlemen at the head of this paper, but speaking in general 
terms.) But out of this same " following" has been deriv- 
ed a notion that the more mean and insignificant a subject 
or object is in itself, the more fit and worthy is the oppor- 
tunity for a poet to make it great by uplifting and surround- 



350 HENRY TAYLOR, AND 

ing it with his own personal feelings and thoughts. To all 
this we say — "Leave the great poet his originality." His 
best teachings should be received, but his experience should 
not be imitated or assumed. Nor will the principle bear it 
arry further than he has carried it, without manifest injury to 
our literature. With Burns the daisy was a " wee, mod- 
est, crimson-tippit flower ;" — with Wordsworth it has " a 
function Apostolical." The small celandine, or common 
pilewort, Wordsworth calls a " Prophet of delight and 
mirth." That in his enlarged and peculiar sense of these 
things, the terms are admissible, we very well know; but 
we should not be prompt to respect any other poet who de- 
clared that to him the daisy was like any apostle, or that he 
could discover any thing prophetic of mirth in the small 
celandine ! It was so to Wordsworth : it is not so to many 
of his followers. 

The steady, classical, and perspicuous style of the ac- 
complished author of " Philip van Artevelde" is much to 
be admired. He, and a few others, have rightly under- 
stood the true meaning of simplicity, as matter of style. 
The word, however, has become injurious by the notion 
that has been created from it, and very much by Mr, Tay- 
lor's assistance, that all splendour of imagery is mere re- 
dundancy; and this notion has hence become a sort of ex- 
cuse for the pride of natural barrenness. 

Now, for our own individual taste, however, we freely de- 
clare that we like something more " audible and full of vent," 
and are not without apprehension that an exclusive devotion 
to the idea of simplicity may gradually induce baldness into 
our poetical literature. There is coming among us a cant 
about simplicity, as though the means of greatness were the 
end. " Nothing (as an ingenious gentleman recently said 
in a monthly periodical) can be more simple than 'Give me 
a pot of beer !' — yet nobody would pretend that this was 
grandeur." To say this, would be like the assertion of Lord 
Peter, in excuse for feeding his poor brothers upon nothing 
but bread. " Bread (said Lord Peter) is the staff of life. — 
Bread comprises within itself the essence of beef, and mut- 
ton, and veal, and partridge, and pheasant, and woodcock, 
and grouse, and quail, and plum pudding, and custard." — 
This will not do ; the beauty and the power of passion and 
imagination, simply expressed, is the great point to aim at ; 



THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS." 351 

and yet by no means to the exclusion of such images and 
phrases as spontaneously arise out of those great elements, 
and are in such cases their most natural interpreters. For 
a demonstration of the above position, if not thought self- 
evident, we can only refer to the practice of the greatest 
epic, dramatic, and lyric poets. 

" So then," it may be said, " you are for the choice of 
great subjects, and a great style ; and not *br the meanest 
things, and simplicity ]" That would be the taunting form of 
the proposition, and would convey a false inference besides. 
Not in that. mode are principles of Art to be discussed. We 
are for an unexclusive choice in good subjects, and we are 
for a suitable style to each. But we are anxious to see 
poets create and design subjects in which their own indi- 
viduality shall be merged ; and that it should be well under- 
stood that true simplicity does not refer to puerilities or a 
barren style, but, primitive emotions, and a clear and con- 
cise form of expression. 

The reader will perhaps recollect, or turn to, the re- 
marks in this volume on Mr. Macaulay's position, that 
to write, or even to enjoy poetry, of the highest class, in- 
volves a certain degree of " unsoundness of mind." Wo 
hope it has there been shown how much the notion amounts 
to ; and that no songs of" battle, murder, and sudden death," 
can be called the perfection of right reason, merely because 
the slayers are ancient Romans. Macaulay is a man of un- 
doubtedly great and most sound understanding — but " how 
about these Lays? — for he cannot be sound and unsound V 

In Mr. Taylor's preface to " Philip van Artevelde," he 
propounds his philosophy of poetry with that clearness of 
expression and gentleman-like courtesy in differing, which 
are characteristic of him. Yet we think that besides cer- 
tain indefensible opinions and assertions, he has not fully 
met the question. With his strictures on Lord Byron we 
agree in the main. Byron was certainly a better construc- 
tor, and a more practical and generally intelligible artist 
than Shelley, though his imagination was fiu inferior to that 
of Shelley. Still, it cannot be rightly inferred, because 
Shelley's imagination carried him away, often into regions 
where his genius could neither act, nor whence it could re- 
turn to earth, but was lost in the bright Immensity, that 
therefore poets ought to make all imagination subservient to 



352 HENRY TAYLOR, AND 

the reasoning faculty, and what is called " good sense," or 
that it should be reduced to the condition of a balanced 
level, and its natural images be shorn and shaven to bald- 
ness. " Suppose I were to say," says Dr. Barney, " Well, 
— I have been to Italy — seen the Venus, the Apollo, and 
many fine things, — but after all, give me a good, plain, 
barber's block." 

Mr. Henry Taylor would no doubt say that he did not 
mean this ; but we fear his argument would amount to some- 
thing like it, and at any rate is calculated to produce such 
an impression, and inculcate a hard dry taste in the public 
mind. Mr. Taylor argues for poets obtaining a fine balance 
of the faculties, (devoutly to be desired, of course,) and re- 
gards " good sense " as " one of the most essential constit- 
uents of genius " — which it undoubtedly is, philosophically 
understood ; and undoubtedly is not, in the conventional 
meaning of the term, as he uses it. These arguments, there- 
fore, must rather be regarded as pretexts for depressing the 
tone of all modern poetry, moderating passion at the very out- 
set, and stunting the growth of imagination by never suffering 
it to rise beyond the calm level of reason and common sense. 

There must be something peculiarly undramatic in the 
mind that could conceive and execute a dramatic subject in 
so lengthy a form as to comprise the same number of lines 
as six plays, each of the ordinary length. In this philo- 
sophical poem, we may find a prolonged illustration of Mr. 
Taylor's principles of poetry and the drama. A dramatic 
poet, without passion ; — what does that amount to ? A ro- 
mantic poet, without any romance in him ; — what does that 
amount to ? A contemplative poet, without a heaven of 
ideality above his head ; — what does that amount to? A 
rhythmical writer, and teacher, who denies the distinct ele- 
ment of poetry as poetry. 

Yet a distinct element it assuredly has. Poetry, though 
made up of other things, is yet as much an entire thing as 
any of the substantive faculties of the mind, each of which 
is made up of the other faculties. For there is no such 
thing as pure reason, pure imagination, pure judgment ; — 
but each helps the other, and of necessity. Still, we admit 
a distinct faculty of each. In like manner do we claim a 
distinct existence for poetry. 

Should we think it fitting that our legislators delivered 



THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS." 353 

Statesmanlike and eloquent orations in Parliament with a 
musical accompaniment; or our philosophers lectured in 
recitative? The arguments of Mr. Ta3lor lead us directly 
to the question of why he docs not write in prose? Certainly 
" Philip van Artevelde " woiild have been as dramatic and 
romantic in prose as in its present form. lis rhythm appears 
unnecessary, and he feels it. After writing an historical 
romance in about ten thousand lines of verse, which ought 
to have been three volumes of elegant prose, he then com- 
poses a Preface to justify the proceeding. He says, " My 
critical views have rather resulted from composition than 
directed it." Finding he could rise no higher, he strives 
to show that rising higher would argue a loss " of the equi- 
poise of reason." 

It may now be asked, — Are there any signs of imagi- 
native vitality among living authors, independent of those 
old established reputations, the owners whereof are repos- 
ing upon their laurels ? — are there any new men with whom 
abstract power and beauty are a passion, and who possess 
the requisite faculties for their development ? Are there, 
also, any signs of efforts, on their part, to revive or create a 
taste in the public for the higher classes of composition ? — 
and if so, with what degree and prospect of success ? These 
are surely very interesting questions — some of them easily 
answered, others open to considerable difficulties and in- 
certitude. 

Whatever may be the struggles — foolishly called all- 
absorbing — which are now transpiring in politics, in the- 
olocry, and in the commercial world ; and however con- 
vinced each of the different parties may be that nothing 
else can go right — nor that, indeed, any thing else can be 
properly attended to — till their particular cause is settled as 
they wish, — it is manifest that there is quite as great a 
struggle coming on in literature, and in that very depart- 
ment which is most neglected by the public — we mean in 
poetry. The public does not see this; and as poetry is at 
present so unpopular, the critics do not see the struggle ; 
but let any body look at the persevering announcements of 
new poems in advertisements, and read a few of the poems 
of some half-dozen of the best, and then the truth of our 
assertion will become apparent. The energetic spirit at 
work in various minds, and with different kinds and degrees 



354 HENRY TAYLOR, AND 

of power, but still at work, not only without the slightest 
outward encouragements, but with all manner of opposition 
in their path, and with the certain expenditure of time and 
worldly meaus upon their " losing game," must absolutely 
possess something genuine in its elements, and in its hope- 
ful and indefatigable continuity. 

Imaginative and impassioned poetry has not been so un- 
common among us as may have been thought. Those whom 
" it concerned" in nearly every instance discovered it, and 
welcomed it. Besides those who are already recognized, 
there have been, and are, others. Several of these little 
known, or unknown, works we will mention. It is a ser- 
vice of abstract love; and we trust it will be received, not 
in a resentful, but a kindly spirit, by those who may now 
hear of them for the first time. One of the least known, 
published as long since as 1824, under the unpromising 
title of " Joseph and his Brethren," was full of the elements 
of true poetry, — in passion, imagination, and in thoughts 
resulting from reason, experience, and understanding. It 
also displayed great descriptive powers. The resemblance 
of the author's mind to that of P. J. Bailey, the author of 
*' Festus," is extraordinary. As the writings of this latter 
poet are at present but little known, (his work was only 
published four years since, and a true poet has little chance 
under ten or twelve,) we ought perhaps to introduce him at 
once in an extract : — 

" We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breatlis ; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
yVe should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most ; feels the noblest ; acts the best. 
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest: 
Lives in one hour more than in years do some 
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins. 
Life is but a means unto an end ; that end, 
Beginning, mean and end to all things — God. 
The dead have all the giory of the world." 

Fcstu^, p. 63-3. 

We should at once decline to argue with any body who 
denied the poetry in the above passage. The philosophy of 
the poem of " Festus " is to show the great ministry of evil 
as a purifier. But the spirit itself mourns, not knowing its 
purpose. In the following, the Spirit of Evil speaks: — 

" The arrow knoweth not its end and aim. 
And I keep rushing, ruining along, 
Like a great river rich with dead men's souls. 
For if I knew I might rejoice ; and that 



THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS." 355 

To me by nature is forbidden. I know 
Nor joy nor soirow ; but a changeless tone 
Of sadness, like the night-wind's, is the strain 
Of what I have of feeling." 

Festus, p. 26. 

This poem abounds with equally fine passages, and in 
nearly every page. Such perfect instances of contrast are 
the minds of Mr. Henry Taylor, and of the author of " Fes- 
tus," that you cannot open the works of either, scarcely at 
any one page, which does not furnish a striking illustration 
of the passion of true poetry on the one hand, and the phi- 
losophical sense, and statesman-like self-possession of verse 
which should have been prose, on the other. 

Here is a passage from the " Additional Scene to Fes- 
tus" on love, which Mr. Taylor will no doubt regard as the 
total loss of " the equipoise of reason," as indeed it usually 
is, we suspect. 

" Festus. It is therefore that I love thee : for, that when 
The fiery perfection of the world, 
The sun, shall be a shadow, and burnt out, 
There is an impulse tow'rds eternity 
Raised by this moment's love." 

Instead of entering into any useless arguments on this 
point, we will at once give a love-scene from Mr. Taylor's 
work. 

Let us take an illustration of" reason " and " passion," 
as the two stand opposed in Mr. Taylor's mind. We will 
extract a portion of the scene in which Artevelde has, with 
much intreaty and many flattering protestations, won the 
consent of Elena to devote herself to him ; — 

Artevelde, " Tell me, sweet Elena, 

May I not hope, or rather can I hope, 
That for such brief and bounded space of time 
As are my days on earth, you'll yield yourself 
To love me living, and to mourn me dead." 

Elena is altogether a creature of impulse and emotion, — 
an Italian, of great beauty and of high birth, but of wounded 
affection and blighted fame. She loves Artevelde passion- 
ately, and his " proposals " (the usual worldly term suits well 
here) affect her deeply. As he presses her to give him up 
her heart, she replies ; — 

" I cannot — no — 
I cannot give you what you've had so long ; 
Nor need I tell you what you know so well. 
I must be gone." 



356 HENRY TAYLOR, AND 

And again ; — 

" No, let me go — I cannot tell — no— no — 
I want to be alone — 
Oh ! Artevelde, for God's love let me go !" 

She leaves him with these words. The sequel proves 
that her love was deep and intense. She lives with him till 
the battle in which he was killed. She finds his body among 
the slain, kneels by it, embraces it, is discovered in this 
state, and when a French knight attempts to defend her 
from the charge of having been the paramour of the dead 
hero, she starts to her feet with the words, — 

" Thou liest, I was his paramour ;" 

thus glorying in her devotion. She revenges the insults 
offered to him, as he lies dead, by stabbing a man to the 
heart, and is herself killed in her resistance to a separation 
from his body. This closing scene is very inefTectively ex- 
ecuted, and the situation being too strong for Mr. Taylor, 
he has painted it coarsely, and with an effect of bombast, 
the result of artificiality striving to supply the want of pas- 
sion ; but it is detailed here to show that Elena had a pas- 
sion for Artevelde. 

How then, to revert to their previous life, did he, cool 
and self-possessed, comport himself, when she, agitated with 
conflicting emotions, left him with the words, " Oh, Arte- 
velde, for God's love let me go !" 

" Artevelde (after a pause). The night is for advanced upon the morrow, 
And but for that conglomerated mass 
Of cloud with ragged edges, like a mound 
Or black pine-forest on a mountain's top, 
Wherein the light lies ambushed, dawn were near, — 
Yes, / have luasted half a summer's night. 
Was it well spent ! Successfully it was. 
How little flattering is a woman's love ! — 
Worth to the heart, come how it may, a world ; 
Worth to men's measures of their own deserts, 
ff weighed in wisdom's balance, merely nothing.'' 

So that the pure gift of feeling which is worth a world 
to man's heart, is worth nothing in comparison with a much 
wiser thing — his vain glory ! Recovering himself, there- 
fore, as quickly as he can, he calls one of his officers — enters 
upon business — and orders two men to be hanged ! 

Here then we find placed before us passion and reason ; 
or, at least, Mr. Taylor's idea of passion and reason. The 
latter he exalts in his theory; the former he condemns as 



THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS." 357 

selfish and as vanity. Whicli is here the more selfish ? 
Passion gives all, even to life itself. Reason wins all, and 
sneers at it. In the world's estimation this self-possessed 
reason is of course the most "respectable;" but which 
stands purest in the eye of God ? 

Several poems of the higher class of imaginative com- 
position have appeared during the last ten years. In allusion 
to the learned and versatile author of the " Judgment of the 
Flood," and the " Descent into Hell," we could hardly do 
better than quote a couplet from the American Poet, Corne- 
lius Mathews — 

" Thy heart -gates, mighty, open either way, — 
Come they to feast, or go they forth to pray." 

The " Record of the Pyramids," by J. E. Reade, is 
another of those works in which the author has chosen a 
great subject, and had a high design in his mind. The ex- 
ecution in this case is unequal to the conception, owing to 
the preservation of a certain philosophic calm, under circum- 
stances when nothing but passion could have carried through 
such stupendous actions as are described, or induced full 
faith in the reader. But the respect and admiration due to 
an author who has always manifested such high and pure 
aims in art, ought always to be gladly awarded. 

While treating of works of design, we should not be de- 
terred from submitting a few remarks concerning " Orion," 
(using the same privilege as Mr. Taylor, and other authors, 
in their Introductions and Prefaces,) but want of space 
warns us to pass on to the works of others, which it is our 
duty to discuss in preference. 

" Vivia Perpetua," by Sarah Flower Adams, is an ex- 
ample of an exalted subject, worthily wrought out, clear in 
design, skilful in construction. The characters are well 
drawn ; the style a true example of simplicity. The ideas 
are more characterized by sweetness and pure religious 
emotion than by abstract imagination, either of beauty or 
power. Yet the power and beauty of impassioned reason 
(we commend the expression to Mr. Taylor's especial atten- 
tion) are never absent, being personified in the principal 
character. Some of the situations in which Vivia is placed, 
are highly dramatic. The following fine extract shows the 
noble "llonian lady renouncing faith in the gods of her 
country. 



358 HENRY TAYLOR, AND 

TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPUS. 
ViviA Perpetua at an altar burning before astatue of the god. 
ViviA. Lo ! where, all trembling, I have knelt and pray'd ; 
Where vow and sacrifice, at morn and eve. 
Shrouded in incense dim, have risen to appease 
The wrath, great Jove, of thy once dreaded thunder, — 
Up to the might of thy majestic brows. 
Yet terril)le with anger, ihus I utter, — 
I am no longer worshi]ipei of thine ! 
Witness the lirm farewell these stedfast eyes 
Forever grave upon thy marble front ; 
Witness these hands — their trembling is not fear — 
That on thine altar set for evermore 
A firm renouncing seal — I am ui'hristian ! 
Where are thy lightnings? — where thine awful thunder? 
Melted from out thy grasp by love and peace ! 

* * * 

The sliadows blacken, and the altar-flame 
Troubles them into motion. God of stone, 
For the last time, farewell !' 

Vivia Perpetua, Act IL Sc 4. 

The character of Vivia Perpetua in the hands of her 
regenerator from the honoured dust of by-gone ages, stands 
dramatically entire and intact; but she has also by sugges- 
tion a spiritual connexion with all those who, in any age, 
struggle towards the light, proclaiming the truth that is 
in them, and suffer with her a martyrdom in the scorn and 
injuries of the world. It is a pcem for tl.e future, as well 
as the past. It is a great subject, worthily executed, al- 
though it would probably bear considerable abbreviation. 

Mr. Taylor's acquaintance with the poetry of his time 
appears to be either very limited, or else we must understand 
him to denounce all poetry except that which is adapted to 
his own peculiar nature and taste. He actually concludes 
his observations on Lord Byron, which are sufficiently dis- 
paraging, by the following statement : — " Nor can it be said 
that any thing belter, or indeed aity thing half so good, has 
been subsequently produced. The poetry of the day, whilst 
it is gi'eatly inferior in quality, continues to be like his in 
kind!" And this, with Alfred Tennyson alive in the world, 
at whom, indeed, the rest of the paragraph seems to point 
directly. We would also commend to Mr. Taylor's dis- 
composed attention the poems of "Paracelsus" and of 
" Festus," were it only that he might endeavour to dis- 
cover the likeness to Lord Byron. They are as unlike, by 
the presence of the tiner qualities of imagination, as " Philip 
van Artevelde " is unlike by the absence of passion. 

Whatever greatness has originated in Wordsworth's 
mind from his habit of refusing " to share any glory with 



THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUS." 359 

his subject " by the systematic selection of things devoid of 
much obvious interest in themselves, and, as he often de- 
clares, on account of their meanness, to the eye, or to the 
general impressions of mankind, it is much to be doubted if 
the adoption of this principle by others will not lead them 
downwards in the scale of enthusiasm. It may tend to 
throw them exclusively upon their individualities, which 
may not inaptly be represented by a paraphrase of a well- 
known couplet, — 

" My Thought is great because the object's mean : -^ 

Then 'twould be greater were no object seen." 

We are fully aware how open every argument of this 
kind will be to misrepresentation. Nevertheless we shall 
speak it out, and trust to having justice in the long run. It 
is such poems as Wordsworth's " Laodamia," — the scriptu- 
ral grandeur of simplicity in " Michael," — the high-wrought 
fervours of his immortal "Ode," and not his illustrations of 
" the meanest objects," that all lovers of poetry so deeply 
admire, and that his disciples should regard as stars to guide 
them. 

It is much to be lamented by all those who are seriously 
interested in works of art, that the power of conception 
should by no means necessarily include the power of design 
and construction ; nor do even these always insure a worthily 
executive hand. A singular example of great capacities in 
execution with a deplorable inability to conceive and build 
up a fabric, was exhibited some few years since, in a half- 
epic, halt-lyrical poem, privately circulated, entitled, "Ernest, 
or Political Regeneration," which was reviewed in one of 
the leading quarterlies. A passage from it will be of good 
application to some remarks previously made with reference 
to the inseparable nature of imagination from all poems of 
large scope, and from poetry itself, which is a radiant Pas- 
sion no less than an art : — 

" The glorious sun, that sate alone 
While yet creation was a child ; 
Is sovereign still upon his throne ! 
Undimm'd, undaikeiied, undefiled, 
They watch and wliecl, tliose mighty spheres, 
Still rushing round him at his will ; 
Tlirough boundless space and countless years. 
And he doth list their music still. 
And ever onward as they roll, 
lie cheers them with his quickening ray." 

Ernest, p. 250. 



360 HENRY TAYLOR, ANl) 

Of the subject of " Festus," we have already spoken. 
The build of its design is so obviously taken from Goethe's 
" Faust," whatever diflferences may also exist, that we can 
but regard it as so far unworthy of the striking originality 
of the materials of passion, thought, and imagination, com- 
prised in its structure. The execution breathes throughout 
a fulness of power. That the work often runs wild, is ad- 
missible ; and besides wilful redundancies, it has also many 
violations of taste. 

But, however great a conception may be, however splendid 
the imagination, the modern artist can never be too earnestly 
exhorted to think well of his design, and the construction in 
all its parts. Why should he fail, as so many do, in these 
things ? Let us endeavour, in a few concluding words, to 
make our meaning clear to all whom it may concern. 

There burns in the elements of certain natures, in the 
secret wells of their being, the deep sources where dwclletli 
the soul, a yearning towards some vaster region than the 
world which surrounds them, and an aspiration which would 
cleave its crystalline walls and soar away towards illimitable 
heavens, unknown ecstacies, and the eternal mysteries of 
Divinity. They feel this yearning, this aspiration, commu- 
nicating itself to the very temperature and current of their 
blood; it stings them to the quick of inward being ; it breaks 
out in drops upon the forehead, and rills down this poor inade- 
quate, corporeal frame. They have mighty thoughts and 
deep ; the deep thoughts often cross each other, and re-crcss 
in their tumultuous lights and shades, till the man is van- 
quished by the over-forces of his own mind : they see mighty 
phantasies and shapes ; and the vision and the image rule 
over the man. Does he dream? No, he wakes ; he has 
awakened to more things than his fellows. Is he mad, or of 
intellect unsound ? Not so ; for he sees clearly and knows 
that his mystery is but some excess in the common mystery 
of all life, and that he is but a troubled human creature; a 
frame-work troubled by some rebounding and imprisoned 
spiiiit within, that seeks for freedom in the illimitable air and 
in the illimitable light, not as a mere wild voyage to regions 
where he would be altogether strange and confounded, but 
as though by a sense of birth-right in these intolerable de- 
sires. But Time moves on — the wheels of the years pass 
over the head and face turned star-ward, — and the man finds 



THE AUTHOR OF "' FESTUS." 361 

that he will assuredly be, some day, old. He is but where 
he was when he first commenced this upward-looking, these 
aspirations to infinity. His thoughts now slowly recoil and 
revolve inwardly, and his visions gather closer around him. 
He seeks a sublime result for that within, which is denied 
to him from without. He places the images of his mind in 
order, even as a man before the death of his mortality 
arrangeth his house ; and finally he is no longer vanquished 
by his thoughts, but fixes and rules over the vision and the 
dream. Here then he finds some solace for his yearnings ; 
he no longer seeks to disperse himself, but to collect ; no 
longer to revel in the arms of bright and unattainable desires, 
but to build. And the condition of this man's mind is that 
of Creative Passion. 

But to the store-house of the world, and to the things of 
worth for man's largest use and benefit, his soul's sake and 
body's sake, of what value is this creative passion ? Can it 
take us up into the blessed air beside it, or help us to ride 
with it triumphant upon the triumphant winds ? Or can it 
come down to us on earth, and if so, with what benefit to 
those who need help 1 How shall we perceive and feel it 1 
How know it, how take it to heart and use it, as an incentive 
to hope, a refuge for sorrow, or an influence to elevate, and 
a medium to bring good tidings to mankind ? Of what value 
to us shall be a palace of mighty voices, and echoes from 
mightier worlds, if we have no fair entrance porch, or if, 
having entered, we cannot distinguish the passages and step- 
flights from the pillars and the walls, nor the right shape of 
any thing, nor the clear interpretation of any voice or echo? 

Out of these wild imaginations, these ungoverned and 
formkss phantasies, these outrages to common sense, which 
heated brains call genius or inspiration, we must seek to 
free ourselves. Should we not call in the aid of calm rea- 
son ? Must we not command all these passionate emotions 
and imaginings by erecting a glacier in the midst, at the 
summit of which Sound Sense shall sit upon his judgment 
throne 1 

There sits Sound Sense upon his throne ! He is at the 
same altitude as those fantastic dreams and fiery emotions 
which he is to govern. Yet a little while he sits; not 
haughtily, bat with a sober pride. And behold ! — his throne 
is sinking — it surely is sinking 1 — the crowned Perfection is 

16* 



362 HENRY TAYLOR, AND 

sinking lower and lower — the glacier is dissolving at the 
base — the passions are cruelly hot — the summit of his glacier 
has now dropt flat — his grave long face gapes wide, and out 
of that widening dismay a grey mist issues, amidst which 
that very miscalculating presumption is diffused and lost. 

Are we again upon earth ? We are safely there, though 
the descending mist is there also. Nay, but Sound Sense is 
a good fellovv when upon earth. Let us all be reconciled. 
For out of the mist we now see a man emerge — an actual 
living piece of humanity. He is a Working Man, and may 
help us in this matter. 

He hath a rough beard, and a strong, well-knit, supple 
body ; a large organic forehead, and a steady eye. In one 
hand he holds a chisel, in the other a lump of clay. A mod- 
eller and a mason, a designer and a builder is this working 
man. He would speak to us. Shall we hear him ? Or 
shall he be dumb, and go on with his own work ? Will the 
Spirit of the Age listen to an unknown, unlaurelled labour- 
er? Well, — let him say what he thinks. 

" The first thing for the making of a house, is the defi- 
nite impulse to have a house made. The second thing, is to 
have imagination to conceive of the design. And the third 
thing, is to have a good workman's hand." 

All this is common, plain-spoken stuff, which every body 
knew before. Why should a man who makes things, pre- 
sume to tell us how things are made ? But let him proceed 
for the chance of something better. 

" The definite impulse, is a passion for that thing ; the 
imagination is the power to think the shape ; and the hand 
is the power to make the shape of the thought. You must 
listen, or depart. For now I will go on. The passion of 
the heart commands the passion of the brain, when the heart 
is of the right strength as meant by God for a natural, 
true man ; and in those heart-felt emotions doth God's voice 
speak — the only inspiration of genius, because a revelation 
from the infinite Maker to the finite maker who devoutly con- 
ceives these things, and aspires to make them manifest to 
his brothers of the earth. If a man have no passion, he can 
have no true impulse to create any thing. If he have pas- 
sion, what he designs will then be in accordance and pro- 



THE AUTHOR OF " FESTUs/' 363 

portion with what he imagines ; and lastly, what he imagines 
can only receive due form, and be intelligible to fitting eyes, 
by mastery of hand." 

•' This shapeless lump of clay, so unsightly, so cold, and 
unsuggestive, is the type of all substance whereon no work 
has been done. Breathe fire into it — give to it a soul, and 
it shall have high capacities ; set an artist's hand to work 
upon it, and it may have an angel's form. All the great 
imaginings, all the splendid visions thai spring up in the 
mind, or can be created by voluntary power, will exercise 
no good influence in the world, nor have a longdate, unless 
they be wrought upon a clear design, and are built up into a 
suitable structure. Nay, thoughts themselves, howsoever 
lofty or profound, must have intelligible form. The spirit of 
philosophy andof art, may comprehend the abstractions, and 
the germinating ideas as they exist in the work-places of the 
brain ; but even these practiced spirits understand the things 
better when they have acquired some definite shape, visible 
within, if not without ; while for the use and benefit of man- 
kind at large no labour is available that hath not intelligible 
form." 

" As generations advance in civilization and refinement 
a polish comes over the surface of nature, so that an artist 
that works with a light hand, shall fi^d his tool's edge 
turned, and his labours produce no effect. In these days 
the people need power. They talk of knowledge, but must 
first be made to feel truth, and desire it. Among the relics 
of ancient Egypt there is a colossal granite Fist ; sole 
memory of a forgotten god. Four thousand years have those 
granite fingers been held close. They did their work — 
and were locked up. It was that power which reared the 
pyramids ; which gave them their structure, their form, 
and their eternity. Thy could not have lasted as rude 
shapeless heaps. They could not have endured the ele- 
ments ; man could not have borne the sight of them. Im- 
agine that mighty fragment of a limb to open out again into 
a Hand ! A good change has come among some nations, and 
will gradually develope itself through all nations, — the 
change of feeling and conviction in the estimate of power. 
True power is now seen to arise from the nobler passions of 
the- heart, and of the intellect. Use, then, that mighty open 
Hand with moral aim, and build for truth a lofty fabric. 



364 HENRY TAYLOR. 

" Nothing will now be received which has not some dis- 
tinct principle, a clear design, a shapely structure. Char- 
acters, passions, thought, action, and event, must all be with- 
in a circle and citadel of their own, bounded by no hard 
line of horizon, and opening large portals on all sides to the 
influences and sympathies of the outgr world. The only 
artist-work that does good in its day, or that reaches pos- 
terity, is the work of a Soul that gives Form. But without 
impassioned life of that soul, the the best-reasoned form and 
structure are but cold vanities which leave man's unstirred 
nature just where they found it, and therefore are of no ser- 
vice on earth." 



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THE END. 



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